Anyone But You
by rayluva4
Summary: COMPLETE Ana and Kai Hiwatari struggle with the everyday drama that is raising two teenager daughters. A story about friendship, trust, questionable situations, sisterly love, and what it means to be a family. Sequel to 'Just Wanna Be Me'.
1. Author's Note

Well I guess I decided to do a sequel after all, I mean I have the idea in my head and it's going to bother me later that I didn't write it out. Not really sure how long it's going to be though and I'm not going to even try to estimate because as you probably already know, I suck at estimating chapter…I think in Just Wanna Be me I kept saying 'I think there's only going to be one more chapter blah, blah blah,' and then there ended up being like ten more lol.

If you are one of those people who are thinking, 'wow, this looks interesting' and clicked on this story and have never read the first one (because yes, it is a sequel to my story Just Wanna Be Me), you don't have to if you don't want to. The reason is simple: my writing sucked in the first several chapters of Just Wanna Be Me and if you go back to read it im afraid you might be like "well this sucks" and just give up on it. I really do believe that my writing has improved since when I first started.

So things you need to know in order to understand the sequel:

Anabella Williams is a princess, who is not satisfied with castle life.

Ana meets a group who call themselves A New Found Glory after sneaking out to the village one night. This group includes, Kai, Tyson, Kenny, Ray, Max, and Tala. They are a group that vandalizes the castle on some night because they don't like the royals.

Ana falls for Kai, but she is set to marry a noble from another kingdom named Boris who is in fact a pig. (not literally, you idiot)

To make the rest of this short, Ana ends up almost marrying Boris until A New Found Glory crashes the wedding.

Ana's parents accept that Ana wants Kai and not Boris and Boris is sent away, but not without consequence. On the same day Kai proposes to her, Ana is kidnapped by Boris.

Ana is raped by Boris.

Boris is caught and put in prison, but escapes back to his kingdom where he tells some lie to the king there and the two kingdoms get into a war.

Kai is injured, doesn't wake up for a really long time.

Ana and Kai are married in the end.

Other couples who end up together: Ray/Mariah, Kenny/Emily (by the way Kenny lost his arm in the war), Tyson/ Hilary, Max/ Skye (Ana's sister), Tala/Gemma (castle cook).

So yeah, there you go for anyone who needed it or anyone who just wanted a recap.

Also a lot of new people are in this sequel because everyone had kids, so it's what this whole story is about. It can get kinda confusing. If you have any questions on who's kid is who's, descriptions, personality, how to pronounce a name, I'll be happy to answer.

Enjoy

---rayluva4


	2. Hidden Motives

**Chapter 1: Hidden Motives **

"Give me my necklace back, Kirie!"

Said girl's musical laugh bounced off the castle walls of the long hallway around her as she kept running forward, her long dark hair flapping hazardously around her.

In mid stride, Kirie twisted her head around to see her older sister, by just a year, glaring angrily at her with dark blue eyes, running a couple feet behind her with only towel covering her body. Her white hair was secured tightly in a wet bun on top of her head with water droplets falling from it to trail behind her.

"You have a gazillion necklaces," Kirie shouted, looking back at her sister with teasing blue-gray eyes.

"Well I'm wearing _that_ one!"

Coming up on an intersection of hallways, the two girls rushed passed almost knocking their brother and his friend over.

Brown eyes widened from shock and then a smiled stretch over his mouth at the sight of the two girls chasing each other and one almost completely naked. He put two fingers between his lips and catcalled down the hall after them.

The girls' brother, Sebastian, rolled his light blue eyes and put a hand over his friend's eyes.

"Put some clothes on, Aurora!" he shouted, knowing his sister was probably too busy to hear him.

The brown-eyed boy swatted Sebastian's hand away from his face.

"Common, lighten up," he demanded.

Sebastian reached up and ran one of his hands through his blue/black hair and sighed.

"That's sick, Jay."

"You only think so because your related," the boy named Jayden mumbled defensively.

Just down the hall, Kai Hiwatari emerged from his bedroom after having prepared himself for a brief meeting with the kingdom's council downstairs. He saw the two girls coming his way before they whizzed passed him, continuing their chasing down the length of the hall.

"Dad," a girl's voice shrieked angrily she passed, "control your daughter!"

Kai knew exactly whose scream that belonged too. His eldest, Aurora.

_What could be the problem _this_ time_…he thought as he turned, ready to go after them.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Mr. H," warned a voice behind him, " last time Gabe tried to help he got his nose busted up."

Kai stopped and turned around to see his son and next to him and an almost spitting image of his childhood friend, Tyson Granger – but instead this boy had brown hair instead of black.

Kai stared back at the two 16 year old boys with his eyebrows raised questioningly.

Jayden shrugged at the king's expression.

"Just warning you –"

Suddenly a loud, frustrated screech pierced through the halls and the guys cringed.

"_Jeez_, Aurora has a pipe on her…" Sebastian muttered, rubbing his ears.

"What the _hell_ is going on?"

Ana Hiwatari's black heels clicked angrily as she came stomping down the hall to the group of guys who had gathered in the middle of the walkway. She was glaring disapprovingly at Kai, like it was his fault, as she approached him and waited for an answer.

Sebastian answered his mom instead.

"Rory and Kirie are fighting again," he sighed casually.

Ana rolled her light blue eyes – the same color as her son – and groaned as she looked down the hallway as another scream echoed off the walls.

Suddenly her glare snapped to her husband again.

"I thought the manwas suppose to do the disciplining?"

Before Kai could retort something smart back, Ana had continued walking down the hallway, her heels clicking harder and angrier now. Her black, back-less dress swayed wildly behind her.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"Alright you two, break it up."

Despite the many possibilities of rooms in the castle they could have been in, it hadn't been hard for Ana to find her daughters; with they way they were yelling the whole kingdom could have found them.

They had ended up in her and Kai's master bedroom actually, and were currently on the room's outside balcony that over looked the gardens below.

Her youngest, Kirie, was holding a shinning gem necklace over the balcony's railing, while fruitfully using the other side of her body has a shield preventing Ana's oldest, Aurora, from getting to her jewelry as she held up her towel with one hand and with the other tried to reach over her sister.

"But mom – "

"Kirie, give it back, whatever it was you took."

Kirie frowned and reluctantly lowered her arm with the necklace in it.

Aurora quickly snatched it back with a huff and stepped away from her sister.

"Common, mom. I was just messing with her…"

Ana reach up and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"How old are you guys?" she asked rhetorically and then sighed. "Look, you know I don't care if you have fun, but do we really need the screaming? I was in the gardens and I could still hear you two."

"She took the necklace I wanted to wear tonight," Aurora accused defensively as she glared at her younger sister, "No other necklace goes with my outfit."

Kirie rolled her eyes.

"Fine. Kirie, don't steal Aurora's things. Aurora, there's no need to scream," Ana replied sternly, and then frowned, "And for goodness sake, Aurora, put some cloths on."

"Yes mom," both sisters mumbled.

Ana couldn't help the loving smile that suddenly spread across her lips. Her daughters reminded her so much of herself at their age.

"You're still teenagers, I get it. But as princesses you have an image to maintain also. Have fun, be yourselves, but know when to act your age too."

Ana turned around and was about to leave the room when she remembered one more thing she wanted to say.

"If I see you dressed like that again, I'll ground you until your sixty," she said looking straight at her oldest.

Ana pinched the bridge of her nose again as she walked out of the room; already she heard the quiet threats that were being thrown back and forth through the doorway.

She was starting to feel bad about what a pain in the ass she must have been to her parents when she was a teenager.

Nineteen years of chiding her three children was starting to wear on her too.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"Ah-ha. See perfect."

"What are you talking about? You have ten more necklaces exactly identical to that," Kirie argued from her place on her sister's bed. A book was in her hands but at the moment she was watching her white haired sister inspect herself in her large wall mirror across the room.

Aurora's room was one of the taller rooms in the castle on the third floor, having high ceilings with stone beams and archways decorating above and long windows. From where Kirie was lounging on the rich red sheets of her sister's king sized bed, a door leading to a large attached bathroom was to her right, a walkway to a balcony was adjacent to the bathroom, and across the room next to the large mirror was another door that lead to Kirie's adjoining bedroom.

Aurora spun once as she inspected herself in the mirror; a girl wearing a flowing gold strapless gown with her hair up in a wet bun, stilling needing to be done, reflected back at her. As she turned, her dark blue eyes caught the light reflecting off of the hazel gem necklace at her throat.

"I think you look gorgeous," Aurora's cousin, Rosaline complimented kindly from her place against the room's balcony doors.

Rosaline was already finished getting ready for the party with a plain, but still stunning on her small frame, dark blue dress that made her ocean blue eyes pop. Her blonde hair was held back in a neat ponytail at the crown of her head.

Aurora turned her head away from the mirror and smiled at her cousin.

"Thanks."

"Where'd Liv go?" Kirie asked as she put her attention back to her book.

Aurora turned back to her mirror, taking her hair out of its bun and let it fall over her shoulders and onto her back.

"Not sure where she was going, but she said she'd be up here soon."

"What do you guys think?" interrupted an excited voice coming from the open door to Aurora's closet next to the bathroom. A girl with short pink hair came out of Aurora's large closet, her hazel eyes shinning with confidence. She twirled once, showing off the peach colored dress she had found after discarding her usual maid's robes.

"It looks good, Porsh," Aurora nodded her approval.

"Thanks, you look pretty hot yourself," the pink hiared girl, Porsha, replied as she looked at her mistress and best friend up and down.

Kirie suddenly sighed loudly. She looked up from her book to give the two girls exasperated glares.

"You know, you guys used to be so cool," she whined dramatically, "it seems just like yesterday we were rolling around in the mud together and listening to our mothers scream at us. Then I just wake up one day to find that you've grown a guy and fashion obsession so intense that it transformed you from reasonable, sane people, into male-seeking, clothes hunting missiles."

"Amen," Rosaline agreed.

"Well excuse us if we don't have hot boyfriends like you two," Porsha teased.

"That reminds me, Kirie…here I got this out for you," Aurora walked away from the mirror to her dresser, grabbed a bracelet that was resting there, and walked over to her bed where her sister was lounging.

Kirie lifted her eyes up and blankly looked down at what Aurora was now offering her. It was a delicate looking diamond bracelet that had small, deep purple gems scattered around it.

"It doesn't really go with that I'm wearing," Kirie said simply.

"Well I was kind of hoping you'd change."

Kirie furrowed her eyebrows.

"Why? What's wrong with that I'm wearing?" she asked looking down at the plain, modest light blue dress that was currently covering her body.

"Tomorrow's my real birthday; tonight's just a greeting thing," she continued dismissively, beginning to look back down at her book, "I'll dress up then."

"I think Nate will like that sexy purple dress I picked out and set on your bed better…"

Kirie stiffened, and looked up in surprise.

"Nate? I thought he wasn't coming until tomorrow?"

Aurora shrugged, "Well, surprise, he is. But don't worry I already laid out shoes to go with that dress on your bed –"

Before Aurora could finish, Kirie hopped up from her sister's bed, dropping her book, and grabbed the bracelet still in Aurora's hand before racing across the room and into the door that led to her adjoining bedroom.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"Can you_ please _hurry up."

"Calm down sparky, Nate's not going anywhere."

"I know but I want to be ready and downstairs when he gets here so he won't have to wait with dad…" Kirie trailed off as she thought about what a disaster that would be. Kirie knew they're father was a complete push over with his girls, but with the boys they wanted to date, he was a total pain in the ass.

"Look, I feel for the guy, but I'm going as fast as I can," Aurora replied defensively as she pulled up another piece of her sister's dark hair, twisted it around her finger and pinned it to the back of her head. Even though she hadn't actually met Nate yet, Aurora still would feel bad if he had to wait even a second with her dad.

"You are a mess, woman," came Porsha's disapproving voice next to the two royal sisters. She was currently dusting another patch of flour from off the top of her friend's head of thick orange hair standing in front of another mirror.

"What exactly did you have to do?"

The girl in question, Livvy, put down the gray eyeliner she had been applying lightly around her icy blue eyes and moved onto a pale shade of lipstick.

"I had to help my mom with some last minute cooking," she answered before puckering her lips and dabbing color on them.

Aurora frowned as she listened, twisting another piece of dark hair into submission and pinning it down.

"That's not like Gemma to be rushing around at the last minute," she said.

Livvy shrugged.

"Some last second additions were put on the guest list and more food had to be made."

"Hey, what about this one?"

Following the muffled voice coming from inside Aurora's closet, Rosaline appeared holding a corset styled red dress out in front of her.

Both Aurora and Porsha looked up from their hair jobs and made a face.

"Next."

The blond turned back and disappeared inside the closet to hunt for another dress.

"That definitely would have clashed with your hair," Aurora told Livvy seriously like she needed to justify her choice.

Porsha nodded, then changed the subject to a topic she found a little more important then what her redheaded friend would wear to the party.

"So do you think you'll be able to get those drinks for tonight, Liv?"

Livvy grinned.

"My mom's tried to hide the stash, but I have to know where everything is in that kitchen to be able to help her cook, so unless she's changed the hiding spot in the last fifteen minutes, then I can get us some alcohol."

This time it was Kirie's turn to smirk.

"I know where my parents keep the alcohol in their room, just in case you can't find it."

"I'm not even going to ask how you know that," Aurora rolled her eyes.

"Don't we get to drink on special occasions anyway?" Rosaline called out from inside the deep closet. She came out holding a revealing deep purple dress this time.

"Where's the fun in that, Rose?" Porsha wanted to know.

Livvy caught sight of the dress Rosaline was carrying and made a face.

"God no, definitely not that thing," she said. She winced as Porsha snagged a knot of her hair between her fingers as she tried to get something sticky out of the mess of hair. "Where do you get these awful dress from, Rory?"

"A lot of them were gifts," Aurora shrugged, "but you know a girl's gotta have variety."

Aurora finally finished the last of Kirie's hair.

"Alright, you're done."

"Thanks."

Kirie hopped out of the chair and started for the door.

"Hey, no loitering with your boy toy tonight, Kir," Porsha quickly reminded her before she ran out the door.

"Sure, ok," came Kirie's faint reply from down the hall.

"You either, Rose," the pink haired girl added loudly toward the closet.

Rosaline came out the closet again with a pink dress and wearing a matching blush on her cheeks.

"He's not a boy toy if we've been going out for almost two years," she argued.

Aurora raised her eyebrows.

"You and Wes have been going out for that long already?" she asked.

Rosaline nodded proudly.

"I don't know what you see in my brother…"Livvy admitted incredulously.

"Well, if you must know, he's easy going, spontaneous, optimistic, upbeat –"

As the blonde continued, Livvy made teasing gagging gestures at Porsha through the mirror she was facing. Porsha giggled, starting to use a brush to comb through her friend's orange hair.

" –and not to mention his soft black hair and beautiful green eyes –

"Ok, please stop before a vomit for real," Livvy finally interrupted.

Rosaline shrugged with a careless grin on her face.

"Well you said you didn't understand why I liked him and I was just explaining myself," she said innocently. Rosaline was good with innocent with her big ocean blue eyes.

"I didn't want the gory details."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Dark gray eyes bore menacingly into uncomfortable brown ones.

King Hiwatari crossed his arms over his chest, never taking his eyes off the younger, dirty blonde haired boy in front of him.

"So your Nathaniel, is that correct?"

The brown eyed boy nodded.

"Yes, your highness."

Kai stared some more as the boy named Nate kept glancing anxiously up the stairs that they were currently standing at the bottom of like he was expecting someone to come walking down them at any minute.

The awkward silence between the two men stretched on but with Kai looking like he couldn't feel more comfortable.

"Does Kirie know – "

"I already sent someone to get her."

"Oh, ok."

More silence.

"Look, sir – "

"Let's make a couple things clear since this is our first time being introduced: What you do to Kirie, I do to you. You touch her, I touch you. You hold her hand, I hold yours. You kiss her, I kiss you. You hurt her, and I break you into."

Nate stared at the King like he was crazy while Kai look right back in all seriousness.

"Nate!"

Kai and Nate both looked up to see Kirie, her dark hair elegantly pinned up, walking quickly down the stairs with a tight smile on her face.

The shape of her face was from her mother, Kai knew, and so was her build, but her hair and careless attitude she had gotten from him. Her eyes were a perfect mix of both Kai and Ana's. It always surprised Kai how much his two beautiful girls had gown up, and how much more they looked like his wife everyday. He couldn't help seeing a younger version of Ana walking down the stairs in that same purple holter dress Kirie was wearing.

The youngest daughter glared at her dad with that same tight smile when she passed him and threw her self into a hug with Nate.

Kai ignored Kirie's glare and frowned as she embraced this Nate boy. He then started to realize how much he disapproved of the dress she was wearing; the front showed too much bare skin and the back took a considerable plunge almost showing off all the way to her petite waist.

He started to clear his throat loudly; ready to unleash some discipline, smart-ass comments, and demand Kirie change into something along the lines of a bag that covered every inch of her body when his wife's voice suddenly interrupted him.

"Nate, so nice to see you again."

Kai frowned at Ana's sweet voice and the way she was smiling kindly at the blonde boy Kai was already starting to hate as she walked down the hallway towards them. How could she act like this boy wasn't practically feeling her youngest, half-naked daughter up right in front of her?

Much to Kai's relief, Kirie and Nate pulled their arms and bodies apart and looked at Ana. The Queen was coming from checking in on the kitchen staff, and she was smiling pleasantly at the dirty blonde haired boy. When she approached the group, she went to stand next to Kai, leaning into the natural curve of his side.

Nate bowed respectively.

"Pleasure to see you too, your majesty."

"I was just taking Nate to the gardens…"Kirie stated, impatiently starting to take his arm and lead him away from her prying parents.

Kai tensed at her sudden plans and his frowned deepened to a scowl.

Feeling his tension, Ana also moved to link her arm around his to calm him. She smiled at her daughter and her boyfriend.

"Ok, I get it," she smiled knowingly, "have fun. Just make sure your back before your guests start arriving, which means you have an hour."

"Ok mom," Kirie replied dismissively, starting to pull Nate away with her, "…common, Nate."

"Remember what I said, boy," Kai added after them, sour with the whole situation. He watched the kids leave before they disappeared around a corner out of sight. He could feel Ana's eyes on him and started to notice that it was oddly quiet. He turned and came face to face with annoyed blue eyes, the cocked hip, and the hand on the waist pose. It was Ana's 'your in trouble' stance.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"You know what."

Kai thought for a minute. What could he have possibly done wrong this time?

He wracked his brain for things he might have done within the passed week to deserve 'the stance'.

Ana sighed, aware that Kai probably wasn't going to answer.

"Why is it so hard for you to be civil to people you've never met before?"

Kai realized now what she was talking about and inwardly groaned.

"I don't like the guy," he stated bluntly.

"I'm not asking you to be best friends with him on your first introduction, but could you at least act decent and give him a chance?" Ana pleaded, "I mean, think of how much my father hated you at first and look where we are now."

Kai hesitated, thinking back. Reliving memories.

Ana watched as a slow smirk started to stretch his lips across his cheeks.

Her eyes moved over his expression, trying to read his face.

"What?" she asked, wary.

Kai turned his body to fully face her. He leaned over, took a strand of stray white hair and moved it back to its ponytail before kissing Ana's exposed neck.

"Just reliving some memories," he answered, his breath sensuously fanning over her skin, sending chills of pleasure up her spine.

"Care to share?"

"Or I could show you…"

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

The throne room was alight with the noisy chatter of the party guests and music playing constantly, but quietly in the background.

King and Queen Hiwatari sit on their thrones over looking the guests with their three children beside them.

Sebastian tiredly starts to nod off to sleep from boredom at his father's right side.

In the throne next to Ana, Aurora distractedly scans over the crowd of people for potentially hot males to introduce herself to later, and beside her, Kirie absently inspects her fingernails while her thoughts drift to her blonde boyfriend and secret drinking parties.

Off to the side Skye and Max sit with their daughter Rosaline, who keeps stealing glances at her dark haired boyfriend as he mixes himself in with the crowd.

Approaching the steps to the royal family, an older, round man wearing a set of intricately designed and colored robes ascends a stair and bows before the family, presenting a small wrapped gift within his hands.

"Ithal, how are you?" Ana smiles politely, "Your trip was enjoyable, I hope?"

The plump man nods.

"Your majesty keeps a beautiful kingdom. And I'm very well, thank you."

Porsha, who was standing next to Kirie, leaves her place to take the gift from Ithal.

"A present for the birthday girl," he smiles, handing the package over. Porsha sets the box on a table off to the side subtracting more space from the already over flowing table.

Kirie puts her hand down from looking at her nails and places it gracefully over the other in her lap.

"Greatly appreciated," she thanks him mechanically.

Ithal bows again, replies that it was no problem and how honored he is for having been invited, and leaves.

This was how the last two hours had gone. Slowly.

Out in the middle of the crowd, with people dressed impressively around him, Wesley stands talking with Nate.

"Some party, huh?" Wesley asks sarcastically, his green eyes glancing toward Kirie sitting on her throne and picking at her nails. "The birthday girl looks absolutely thrilled."

Nate looks in the direction Wesley is until he spots his girlfriend.

"Why don't you ask her to dance?" Wesley suggests, giving Nate a sly grin.

"Her dad might kill me."

Up in his chair, Kai emotionlessly stares down into the large crowd of people.

"Mr. H can be a grouch, but he's really not all bad."

Nate gives his new friend a doubtful stare.

Wesley shrugs.

"Well, you are dating his daughter, dude, what do you expect?" he laughs.

Suddenly being shoved roughly to the side, Wesley has to struggle not to drop the drink he has his hands.

"What the f – "

"Go up and ask Rose to dance already, her obvious boredom is pathetic and she's been giving you glances for the past hour if you haven't noticed," hisses an annoyed feminine voice.

Wesley straightens up and sees his sister, Livvy, glaring at him while holding a tray of small appetizers and wearing a silver dress with her usually wild orange hair tamed into a tight bun. He glances up at his beautiful Rose sitting to the side of her cousins with her father and mother. Guilt licks at his heart. She was waiting for him.

Wesley rakes a hand through his black hair, hair he had inherited from his mother. He turns to Nate and suddenly gives him a small smile.

"Just follow my lead…and don't worry about Kai." He starts maneuvering his way through the crowd toward where the music is coming from.

Confused at first, it takes a minute before Nate realizes Wesley was talking to him and follows as he gives his friend's backside a doubtful look.

"How can I not worry about a man that could have my head cut off and mounted within the hour…" he mumbles.

Livvy rolls her eyes at the boys.

"Finally," she sighs, walking off to serve more food.

Wesley breaks through the crowd of people and in front of him is the small orchestra of men and women and violins and cellos and flutes and trumpets. At the head of the musical group stands the conductor on top of a small raised platform in a clean, crisp black suit, with his short brown hair tidy when it's usually messily kept, waving his arms smoothly in patterns only the orchestra can interpret.

Wesley approaches the boy who is around his age of seventeen and lightly pokes him in the side.

The boy turns, surprised, and looks down at Wesley, never stopping the movement of his arms.

"Could you slow it down for just a couple songs for me, Gabe?" he asks, flashing him a smile.

Behind small rectangle shaped glasses, Gabriel's dark green eyes glance knowingly up toward the royals at the head of the room and nods, smiling warmly.

"I'll see what I can come up with."

"Thanks dude."

Nate watches the short conversation curiously and then continues to follow Wesley toward their girlfriends. Around him the once quiet, up beat music ceases playing and instead a soft hum of instruments starts playing slowly, creating a more hushed atmosphere. People mill around each other, trying to find dancing partners, and couples start to appear on the dance floor while others step back.

Nate watches Wesley confidently ascend the stairs to the thrones. He bows politely first to the King and Queen and then turns straight for the blonde girl Nate knew as Rosaline –who was cute, but was too naïve for his tastes – who has the brightest smile on her face as he holds out his hand to her.

"Dance with me?" he asks softly. An emotion Nate recognizes flickers across Wesley's green eyes as he stares at his girlfriend. Just by this look on Wesley's face, Nate knew that he would do anything the blonde would ask. Wesley was definitely whipped, and obviously didn't bother to hide it.

Rosaline looks to her dad, who nods his approval, and Wesley takes her hand and leads her down the steps, passed Nate, and to the dance floor.

Nate looks at Kirie, then Kai and gulps.

If only it were that easy.

Despite his nerves, he takes a deep breath, removes himself from the shelter of the crowd, and cautiously starts walking up the stairs. Before even daring to look at Kirie, Nate approaches the King and bows.

"It would honor me deeply if your majesty would allow me to have a dance with Princess Kirie," he says smoothly, all the politeness he's learned over the passed couple years surfacing.

A long silence passes as Kai contemplates, but Nate still doesn't dare to lift his brown eyes.

In her seat, Kirie glares hard at her father, while Aurora grins happily for her sister as she watches the scene play out.

The warm smile Ana had been holding, slowly starts to fade as Kai's silence stretches on until it becomes almost too awkward for her to bare. Without looking at her husband, she gives his arm a firm, sharp nudge with the point of her elbow.

Kai scowls down at the still lowered head of Nate like it was his fault.

"Yes, alright fine," he replies, the answer coming out in a hiss between his teeth at his attempt at decency.

Nate straightens his posture with a smile and holds out his hand to Kirie.

Now all smiles, the dark haired princess takes Nate's hand and lets him lead her down the couple of stairs from her throne to the dance floor.

Ana's smile is back as she lightly pats Kai's hand.

"That wasn't so hard."

Kai is so irritated with the dirty blonde teenager who is now placing his hands on his youngest daughter's waist that he doesn't respond.

From her place next to her mother, Aurora sighs sadly as she enviously watches first her cousin and now her sister get swept away by cute boys. All she needed was one to rescue her too. She looks over the crowd of people again. She spots Gage's head of thick black hair standing next to Jayden, Rosaline already twirling around with Wesley, and most importantly guys. A variety of guys too– short, tall, tan, pale, lean, muscular, foreign, you name it.

"Drool much?"

Aurora turns her head to the right with a roll of her eyes to see Porsha smirking teasingly at her. The princess turns her nose in the air.

"I never drool…but hello, I'm not _blind_."

Porsha can't help but agree even with the teasing smile on her face.

"Now I don't know about you, but I'm sick of sitting here watching everyone else have fun…" Aurora turns and smiles sweetly at her mother just to her left.

"Mom, may I please be excused?" she asks.

Ana smiles as her daughter.

"Sure, sweetheart."

Aurora triumphantly stands up to pick up the ends of her dress, motions for Porsha to follow, and descends the stairs into the crowd.

Sebastian enviously watches his sister leave and disappear between the group of people below him. Even Porsha got to leave.

His light blue eyes stare at his father expectantly.

"What?" Kai asks when he feels his son staring at him.

"I'd like to leave also."

Kai pauses.

"Alright, have fun," he allows.

Sebastian breaks out into a grateful smile and nearly jumps out of his throne and throws himself into the crowd.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Kirie contently settled into the curve of Nate's body. A comfortable warmth engulfed her as they swayed back and forth to the rhythm of the soft music. One of his hands was covering hers, and the other was placed on her hip. Kirie almost started laughing as she pictured her dad watching them and the face he was most likely wearing.

His warmth was pulling her deeper. The lids over her blue-gray eyes started to droop. Kirie laid her head on his shoulder.

As they turned and swayed, she saw the back of Gabe's head of light brown hair through the crowd in front of his orchestra, and his arms appearing and disappearing over party goers heads as he gracefully directed the instruments. In a stunning silver dress, Livvy was helping her mom with the catering. She walked through the crowd with a friendly smile on her face and a tray of appetizers. Kirie caught sight of Rosaline just next to her dancing with Wesley. Just barely she could see her brother, Sebastian, lively talking with Gage and Jayden. Bright hazel eyes caught hers looking at them, and Kirie gave a small wave to Gage, who returned the gesture with a friendly smile.

The person easiest to spot was her sister, with the only head of white hair – aside from their mother – in the room. Aurora confidently strolled through the crowd, shamelessly sizing up the young men as she went, and all of them seemed to be going the same.

Aurora had a kind of beauty that brought things to her. And of course Kirie had the same physical attraction as her sister in a sense, but Aurora had the more open beauty. Even when she was little Aurora took the spotlight and fed off the attention that came with it. She knew how to play people with her charm to get what she wanted, but that was just Rory, and Kirie loved her sister no matter how much of an attention whore she was, and even if it did get pretty annoying sometimes.

Kirie inhaled Nate's scent of some kind of expensive cologne, trying to remember that she was the one with the boyfriend this time. She pressed a chaste kiss to the side of his neck before laying her head back down and letting him lead their dance.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Ever since loosing her first kiss to Gage when she was nine, Aurora found that she loved guys. She loved the way they smelled. She loved the feeling of their lips on hers. Loved the way they looked like they would do anything to keep kissing her once she pulled away. She considered herself a bit of a player – if her parents knew, they'd kill her – but once the initial rush of the first kiss wore off she tended to become bored. What could she do? She liked variety. Different clothes, different shoes, different jewelry…different guys.

Always had, always will.

She was aware that she probably thought more like a guy when it came to the opposite sex then most of the guys she knew, and definitely went through a lot more.

Almost like a radar that had been permanently built into her brain, Aurora spotted a group of guys –about five – in the crowd talking together. There was one in particular that caught her eye though. Dark, curly brown hair. Her age, maybe older. Tanned skin. Possibly foreign. Hershey colored eyes. Medium height. Broad shoulders.

_Yum_.

"I got dibs on the foreign," she whispered to her maid, Porsha, who was at her side.

"As long as I get the blonde," came the excited response.

Aurora scanned over the group of guys to see who Porsha had her eyes on. Bright blonde hair. Tall. Lanky. Deep green eyes.

_Nice. _

Porsha and Aurora confidently strolled over and boldly planted themselves right next to the men.

"I hope you are enjoying yourselves?" Aurora inquired politely.

The guys immediately stopped talking, and upon recognizing one of the princesses, bowed.

A round of 'yes, thank you' came muttering up from their lips as they slyly straightened back up to get a good look at the girls talking to them.

Aurora was aware of the other eyes on her, but she could only focus on the dark eyes of the foreign hottie. As soon as his gaze fluttered from her lean elegant figured wrapped in a gold dress, to her daring dark blue eyes, Aurora knew that he wanted to touch her. She took complete advantage of his reaction by moistening her lips with her tongue and ever-so-casually tucking a strand of loose white hair behind her diamond clad ear while arching her back. And if doing so thrust her breasts out, well, that was ok too.

"Aurora Hiwatari," she said, holding out her hand and introducing herself. She was vaguely aware of Porsha chatting up the other guys in the background. Her pink haired maid could be seductive when she wanted to be.

Foreign hottie smiled slyly and took the princess's hand to his lips to leave a whisper of a kiss on her knuckles.

"Kaloyan. Nice to finally meet you, princess," he replied in a smooth, slightly accented voice – a _totally hot_ voice.

Around her, Aurora heard the current song that was playing coming to an end, and slowly a new one started to take its place.

Kaloyan's hershey eyes twinkled as he straightened up and held out his hand.

"May I have this dance, your highness?"

Aurora broke into a broad smile.

"I'd love –"

"Rory! Come here!" someone suddenly started grabbing her arm and pulling her rudely away from Kaloyan.

Aurora turned to see Kirie excitedly tugging on her.

"I want you to properly meet Nate," she explained.

Aurora looked over her sister's head and saw the dirty blonde boy known as Nathaniel waiting across the room. He was curiously looking her way with his hands lazily hooked in his pockets.

"But I'm busy…" she started to whine through gritted teeth as she looked back, motioning to her sister the tanned cutie behind her.

"He'll wait."

Next thing Aurora knew she was being pulled away anyway, through the crowd of people and over to Nate.

"Nate, this is my sister. Aurora this is Nate," Kirie introduced cheerfully.

Aurora lazily held out her hand – grumpy that she was separated from her chances with Kaloyan – and looked up to see her sister's boyfriend.

"Pleasure to meet you, princess," Nate replied, flashing a grin.

Aurora took in a breath to steady herself. Her sister's boy love was gorgeous! His hazel eyes stayed glued to her as he took her hand and leaned down to kiss it. She admired the way his lean, boyish body looked in his black suit and the nice way he kept his blonde hair. The way that he kept himself and even the way he stood practically screamed nobility and rank. Aurora could appreciate that also.

The oldest princess had seen Nate before, but not up close and straight on, and this was the first time she had met him having been away with her dad last time he was here. But now she could officially say that Kirie had good taste after all.

Aurora suddenly realized she was admiring way too much and that Nate's kiss was lingering way to long. She awkwardly pulled her hand away and cleared her throat, because, _duh_, this was Kirie's boyfriend.

Nate straightened up and shamelessly stared her down. Aurora looked to Kirie who either didn't seem bothered at all, or just didn't notice. Her younger sister just looked happy to see that they were getting along fine. Never had Aurora seen her usually careless sister so happy. It was refreshing.

"Ok, well, it was nice to finally meet you, Nate," Aurora smiled politely, then turned to Kirie," but I'm afraid I have some business to take care of so if you'll excuse me…" and with that said she turned and walked away, leaving Kirie still smiling and feeling Nate's gaze burn a hole into her backside.

A bit awkward but it could have been worse. Aurora felt uncomfortable with the way Nate was looking at her though. In the pit of her stomach, she had a weird feeling about him.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Kai had never been one of parties. There were too many people, too much noise, too much small talk, and way too many hassles. Even after almost twenty years of being married to the Queen, he never got used to them.

Instead of mingling, Kai usually just entertained himself by watching his kids. Something that usually calmed him, this time was making him more irritated then the party itself.

And it wasn't watching his son that made him so upset, it was watching his daughters. Aurora, as always, was chatting it up with some of the slightly older men from the other kingdoms. And then there was Kirie. And _Nate_.

Kai wasn't too subtle with the fact that he disliked the boy. But really there wasn't anything not to like about Nate. He was polite, from a noble family, and made Kirie happy. He was – and Kai hated to admit it – a perfect suitor. The boy had never given Kai a legitimate reason to despise him so, except for the fact that he was dating his youngest.

Well, that was enough for Kai.

Breaking him out of his silent brooding was Ana's sudden sigh. He turned to his wife who was sitting next to him.

"What's wrong?"

"I hate seeing them grow up," she muttered sadly, not looking at him but out into the crowd of people below them.

Kai followed her gaze back to his children.

Anger flared inside him as Nate dipped Kirie in a dance. He watched with protective irritation as Aurora joined a conversation with a group of guys. His only son met up with a group of his guy friends at the refreshment table, from what he could see it was Tyson and Ray's sons.

Kai felt that strings of abandonment pull at his callous heart as his kids walked farther away. But the feeling wasn't new. It was something Kai had felt everyday for a long time as his two daughters and son grew older and the string tightened.

He could sympathize with his wife. Watching one's kids grow up and slowly break away from you was tough, but it was also necessary. A way of life.

Kai reached over and laced his fingers through Ana's petite ones; fingers that were starting to soften to a leathery feel with age.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

This was it. Their first kiss. In this dimly lit hallway right outside his guestroom. Voices waffling up from down stairs.

His hands were on her hip and cupping her neck, bringing her closer.

She leaned into his hand.

It seemed like an eternity before their lips were only inches apart.

The world around her moved antagonizingly slow.

Her heart beat fast within her chest and she was positive her cheeks were tingled with a blush. She looked down at his delicious lips, wondering what he was going to taste like.

Her lids drooped over her blue-gray irises until closing fully, only moments from kissing him.

"Your room is satisfactory?"

Kirie gasped, eyes snapping suddenly open, and sharply pulled away at her father's bitter voice.

Nate put is hands to his side and his eyes were wide as he turned to face the King.

Kai was leaning on one of the stone columns that helped hold the frame of the hallway just a couple paces down the hall. His arms were crossed and he was glaring at Nate, waiting for an answer.

"Dad!" Kirie hissed, eyes flashing and mortified. "What are you doing!"

"Making my rounds. Checking to make sure our overnight guests find their rooms comfortable," he answered, his dark eyes never leaving Nate.

"Very much, sire, thank you," came Nate's slightly uncomfortable response.

"Some of the men are staying for drinks downstairs. Your welcome to join."

Kirie had a feeling that tone in her father's voice was far from sincere. In fact, she knew it was only an invitation to get Nate as far away from her as possible for the night, somewhere he could be watched.

Nate bowed and answered much to Kirie's annoyance.

"I'd be honored."

Silence stretched over the group.

Kirie continued to glare at her father, waiting for him to leave, but the king showed no signs of moving.

Suddenly Nate cleared his throat, obviously not one to challenge Kai.

"Well I guess this is goodnight, princess," he said, bowing.

Disappointment pulled inside Kirie's stomach. She frowned and gave a slight nod.

"Goodnight to you too."

Nate turned and disappeared behind his room door.

Kirie pivoted on her heel and angrily stomped passed her father, choosing not to speak with him, while Kai struggled to keep a victorious smirk hidden. He followed her until she opened the door to Aurora's room and slammed the door shut behind her.

Still smug, Kai walked back downstairs to play host.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"I can't believe my father."

Aurora barely looked over the nail file she was using to shape her nails.

"What did he do this time?" she asked, not surprised.

Already in their nightgowns, Livvy and Rosaline turned their attention to their dark haired friend in amusement as she angrily striped out of her purple dress. She threw the dress into the corner and snatched a nightgown from out of her sister's closet and slipped it over her head.

"Just when Nate was about to kiss me –"

Rosaline's eyes light up in excitement.

"Really?" she exclaimed.

"Yes," Kirie huffed, annoyed that she's been interrupted, "and –"

"How was it?"

Kirie glared at her sister who gave her a sweet curious smile in return.

"I said '_about_ to kiss me', now can I finish?"

"Go ahead, Kir, I'm listening," Livvy stated.

"_Anyway_, dad popped up outta now where and was like, 'is your room comfortable?' and 'come down and have a drink' like he wanted Nate around, but then he wouldn't leave and he just kept staring at Nate and it was mortifying and I wish he's mind his own business!" Kirie ranted, not even stopping to breathe.

She yanked the pins out of her hair, letting the dark curls fall onto her back, and then threw herself on Aurora's bed right beside said girl and sighed.

"Just hand me a drink."

"We're still waiting for Porsha," Rosaline reminded her.

"Besides we gotta save every drop for this heap," Livvy warned, motioning towards the large windows in the room. Kirie then noticed the huge pile of wrapped boxes expanding the length of the room and reached possibly her own height.

Oh, right. They always opened birthday presents together while Porsha wrote them down for thank you letters later. Kirie inwardly groaned at the sight of it. The people that always attended her parties never knew how to give practical gifts.

"So that would have been like what, your first kiss, right?"

Kirie looked at her sister.

"No…well, yeah I guess…"

"How adorable!" Rosaline exclaimed.

Kirie rolled her blue-gray eyes to the ceiling. "Why is it such a big deal?" she asked.

Aurora gave her sister a smug smile.

"You'll be the last one of us to get her first kiss."

Kirie's mouth fell open in disbelief

"No, Livvy hasn't…have you?"

"I kissed that boy from the village three years ago, remember? Wesley nearly kicked the poor boy's ass, he was so pissed," she answered, gradually pealing off the paper that was wrapped around the alcohol bottle she was holding.

"What about Porsh…sorry, stupid question."

"I got mine with Wes last year!" Rosaline reminded everyone happily.

"Yeah, it took you long enough too," Kirie mumbled, jealous that even the naïve one had been kissed before her.

Rosaline stuck her tongue out at her cousin and made a face. "Don't act so bitter," she said.

"I beat you all at nine years old with Gage," Aurora interrupted proudly.

"_Ah-choo_…_slut_…."

Aurora's head whipped around to glare at Livvy who looked innocently back at her.

"What?" Livvy shrugged, a smile playing on her lips, "I have no idea who said that." The redhead narrowly dodged a pillow that was thrown at her.

"You're like a kissing virgin!" Rosaline added, giggling.

Kirie groaned, pouting her lips at Livvy.

"Can I have a drink already?"

Rosaline crossed her arms stubbornly, "Not until Porsha gets here."

"Well, she taking an awful long time and I'm not in a patient mood."

"I'll go look for her," Aurora volunteered as she hopped off her bed and discarded her nail file. She grabbed her deep red robe that was hanging on her bedpost and covered her nightgown-clad body in it.

Even as Aurora left she still heard her friends arguing behind her.

Finding her maid was not as easy as she thought it was going to be. Aurora walked around on the second floor where her bedroom was at, but after coming up empty she walked downstairs and to the back of the castle to the maid's quarters.

Even though it was time for most people to turn in for the night, the large stone room of the maid chambers was far from quiet. Dozens of maids ranging from ages of ten to seventy-five bustled around carrying baskets of towels or sheets and buckets of water out the door.

Surprised, the maids that noticed Aurora's entry stopped what they were going and bowed.

"Has anyone seen my maid?" the princess asked, scanning over the many heads for pink hair.

Many of the girls shook their heads shyly.

"Porsha's been helping me. She's on the third floor and should be almost done."

Aurora looked away from the other girls and saw her mother's maid come around a corner of the room that led to the many beds for the girls. She had a large load of clean clothes in a basket at her hip.

With long hair the color of her daughter's, Aurora considered Mariah equivalent to another aunt, who used to watch her and Kirie when their mother was away on trips with their father.

Aurora smiled warmly.

"Thanks, Mariah."

"No problem," she returned the smile and winked, "have fun at your 'girls night in'."

Dark blue eyes followed Mariah as she disappeared around the corner again, wondering how that woman always knew everything. Shaking it off, she turned on her heel and quickly headed back upstairs, knowing her sister was probably having a tantrum by now with impatience.

Ever since Kirie had met this guy, Aurora noticed how much her sister's moods seemed to change.

When Nate was back at home, Kirie was her laid-back, careless self, always preferring to watch life play out in front of her then interrupt the flow of things. But when Nate was here, Aurora saw how much Kirie changed. She was brighter, seeming to glow more, smiling all the time. She was a bit quicker to temper, cared what she looked like, what she was wearing, and what Nate thought of her.

It was a Kirie that Aurora had never seen before and she couldn't decide which sister she liked better.

Aurora climbed up the next set of stairs to the second floor, headed to the third. Her bare feet made light patter sounds on the cold marble steps.

What was so great about Nate anyway? Sure, he was gorgeous, but there were plenty of gorgeous men in the world, take it from her. If you asked Aurora, she kind of thought Nate was a bit on the creepy side with the way that he stared at people.

Being so lost in her thoughts and defiantly not paying attention, the princess just about ran into a man coming down the stairs. She wobbled and shot her arms out to keep from loosing her balance to the steps behind her.

A strong grip reached out and firmly grabbed her upper arm.

"Careful, your highness."

Aurora's eyes snapped up.

Speak of the devil.

Nate.

Finally positive she wasn't going to fall, Aurora gently wiggled her arm from Nate's grip.

"Thank you," she replied, awkwardly clearing her throat after getting her arm free. He was staring at her again. She averted her eyes. If this had been a normal situation, Aurora would have flirted it up with this McHottie, but seeing as it defiantly was _not_ a normal situation and this _was_ her sister's boyfriend…who was still giving her that stare…Aurora slowly started backing away, her brain whirling for a good excuse to leave.

"So…" Aurora hummed distractedly as she tried to concentrate on excuses, "what are you still doing up?"

Nate smiled crookedly and for a second made Aurora forget what she was thinking about.

"I was just about to join some of the guys downstairs for drinks," he answered, and then looked at her curiously, "I could ask you the same."

"I was looking for Porsha…ah, there she is!"

Coming down the steps from the third floor was her maid looking exhausted but perked up when she saw Aurora. And so did the princess. Porsha was like her own personal white knight come to save her the awkwardness and creepy stares.

So as soon as the princess saw that flash of short pink hair out of the corner of her eye, she turned on her heel and left Nate in the dust looking confused. She intercepted Porsha's path, grabbing her by the arm and pulled her the rest of the way to the second floor.

"Good night!" Aurora called back to Nate, her last attempt not to seem rude.

"Been looking for you," she continued as they walked, trying to distract her pink haired maid. Aurora walked hastily beside Porsha; her arm still attached to the girl as she dragged her farther down the hall.

Porsha didn't seem to notice Aurora's impatience; instead she went straight into her explanation.

"I know! But you wouldn't believe some of these people!" Porsha cried defensively, "most of the crowd left but the ones who are staying over night are ridicules. Some of the men went down stairs for drinks; it's the older couples and the women that stayed to get ready for bed who are complete pain in the asses! 'I want this, I need that', 'I want more blankets', 'it's too hot', 'it's too cold', 'more towels', blah, blah, blah! _God_, I just wanted to punch some of them!"

To emphasize her frustration, Porsha threw a closed fist into the air across her body, but Aurora was barely listening. The princess stole a quick glance behind her to where Nate used to be standing, but he was gone. God, that guy gave her the creeps sometimes, and Aurora had met some creepy guys in her lifetime. It was his eyes; those beautiful brown eyes that stared right through you and held an air of…was it lust? Desire? Admiration? Aurora couldn't quiet put her finger on it. Maybe she should tell Kirie what she thought of her boyfriend. After all, the sister's opinion on the boyfriend was important, right?

"Finally!" Aurora heard Kirie sigh loudly once she had made it down the hall and escorted Porsha through her bedroom door.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm ready!" Porsha giggled at Kirie's impatience, running over to the bed, grabbing a pillow and taking a seat on it on the floor.

Before another complaint could come out of Kirie's mouth, Livvy started pouring the orange juice she'd brought into the champagne glasses that Aurora had smuggled to her room earlier. She then mixed in what was left of the clear liquid of vodka she had provided from the kitchen and then from the bottle that Kirie had hid in the room before the party from her parent's room.

It was quiet as the drinks were passed from girl to girl until everyone had their own.

"Lucky mom and dad never check their alcohol," Aurora said as she took her first sip, loving the burning warmth the drink had as it went down her throat.

"What makes you think they don't?" Kirie asked. "I always figured they knew we help ourselves, but they want to be the cool parents that let us do stuff like this sometimes."

Aurora scowled at her sister.

"That's strangely sick."

"But possibly true," Livvy pointed out and drained almost her whole glass in one gulp, cringing as it went down.

Aurora still looked disturbed while Kirie smirked in amusement at her sister's discomfort, and then followed Livvy's lead of draining her glass.

Aurora looked to Porsha and then Rosaline for their opinions, but they were both contently sipping their drinks. She looked back to her own drink, frowning as she glanced down at it.

"Suddenly, this is less fun."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"What color is that? Shit green?"

"No, I think it's olive."

"That's not olive. It looks like puke."

"Well I think it goes wonderfully with Livvy's hair."

Said redhead sarcastically rolled her eyes to Porsha.

"Now that we're done laughing at me, can I take this ugly thing off," she asked.

Aurora shrugged as she stretched her legs out on her bed. She leaned into Kirie's side to steady herself and put her glass to her lips for another gulp.

"You know the rules; you open it, you model it."

Livvy scowled at Aurora and swiped her glass off the floor that was sitting next to the pillow she had been sitting on. She trudged back into the bathroom to take off the olive green dress she was modeling, her glass still in hand.

"And who decided to gift Kirie with that lovely creation?" Porsha asked, trying to fight back a few giggles that escaped through her lips.

Rosaline, who was sitting closest to where Livvy had been sitting, leaned over and looked through the colorful wads of tissue paper that littered the box that the dress had come in. She found the cardboard lid and flipped it over to read who the sender was on the card attached.

"Lord and Lady _Pe-tr-ary…Pee-try_?" Rosaline broke into a loud fit of giggles as she tried to pronounce the name. Either that or she was a little too tipsy to read straight.

Porsha snorted from her seat at Aurora's dresser. She turned and scribbled the name on the 'thank you' list in front of her.

"If you ever wear that I _will_ disown you," Aurora said in all seriousness as she looked up at her sister.

Kirie smirked down at her sister who was still using her side as a support to keep from falling sidewise on her bed and spilling her glass.

"In that case I'm wearing it tomorrow," she challenged.

Aurora's mouth dropped open and with her free hand she clenched at her heart feigning hurt.

"Ouch," she whined playfully.

"So whose turn it is to open a present," Livvy asked, coming out of the bathroom. The olive green dress was hanging from her arm. She threw it into the 'shit' pile, which not surprisingly was already a huge pile since rich people obviously didn't know how to give practical gifts. Didn't they know that Kirie's room was already overflowing with dresses and necklaces before they decided to give her this stuff?

"I will," Rosaline volunteered cheerfully. Rosaline was one of those people that if they had too much to drink they got extremely happy about every little thing, which is why she skipped over to the pile of wrapped presents that was getting reasonable small now, and practically leaped back to her pillow on the floor to open it.

She had grabbed a small box, most likely a jewelry box, and was wrapped in paper that had many interesting patterns across it in shades of burnt orange, brown and deep red.

Rosaline's face screwed up in concentration as she opened the little box. Inside something was wrapped up in black tissue paper, and on the tissue paper was a small card.

"Ithal," Rosaline read from the simple card.

Kirie's attention peaked as she heard the familiar sounding name.

Rosaline pulled the tissue paper away from the box's contents and lifted up a small bracelet from the mess.

Kirie curiously watched her blonde cousin pull the piece of jewelry closer to her face to better inspect it.

"Wow, this is unique."

"Let me see."

Rosaline wobbled a bit as she got up but made it over to the princess and handed her the gift.

Still leaning into Kirie's side, but almost asleep, Aurora saw the interesting bracelet her sister was holding. It was made of all braided leather and spaced throughout it were small red, orange, and brown wooden beads with white carvings etched into them.

Aurora leaned in closer, trying to make out what was carved into the bracelet. They were little carvings of animals. As Kirie turned it there was an elephant, a lion, a rabbit, a horse, and a dog.

Kirie wrapped it around her wrist and tied it, then held her arm out in front of her to inspect it.

"How pretty," Rosaline smiled.

Aurora raised an eyebrow at her cousin.

"It's so plain looking…and what are those animals for?"

By now Livvy and Porsha had closed in to see this bracelet too.

"They probably mean something," Livvy guessed, "Like good luck or something."

"I think it's kinda ugly, I mean, couldn't he have made it out of gems or something?" Porsha added. She was staring at it like it might jump off Kirie's wrist and bite her nose off.

"I think it's cool, I like it," Kirie answered, "it's different."

"Do you like it more then the horse I got for you?" Rosaline pressed.

Kirie looked down at her new bracelet then back up to the hopeful ocean blue eyes of her cousin.

"Of course not," she lied, "You've definitely had the best gift so far."

"Can I go to bed now?" Aurora's muffled, whining voice interrupted.

Kirie looked to her right and down. Obviously her sister had lost interest in her drink, which was sitting on the floor now, the unique bracelet, and the gift opening, because her face was buried deep into Kirie's lap and the rest of her body was sprawled out behind her on the bed.

Porsha looked over at the pile still needing to be opened.

"We still have a few more to open."

Kirie looked up and at Livvy who also looked tired, and so did Porsha.

"I can open the rest by myself later, you guys go to bed," she suggested.

"Great, everyone out of my room," came Aurora's voice again.

"I'm not tired!"

Everyone, except the oldest princess, looked to Rosaline and her wide blue eyes and energized face.

"Figures," Livvy rolled her eyes, "but you'll feel it in the morning."

The blondes shoulder's slumped.

Porsha sighed, standing up.

"Common, Rose, I'll tuck you in," she assured her blonde friend. Porsha took Rosaline by the arm and helped her up.

"More like make sure she even gets there…" Livvy snickered.

Rosaline was too busy pouting to hear her redheaded friend, while Porsha was too busy trying not to let Rosaline fall to add something to it.

Once the too girls were gone, Livvy also stood up.

"Can't wait to let Wes know what his girlfriend was doing all night," she smiled evilly, then added, "Do you want any help carrying some of this to your room?"

"Nah, I'll leave it in here, if that's ok with Aurora…"

Moaning was the only response to come from the 'graceful' princess.

"I think that mean yes," Livvy guessed, " 'Night," she added before walking out of the room and shutting the door behind her.

"Ok sunshine, everyone's gone."

Kirie poked the top of her sister's head.

Aurora moaned again, rolled over and drug herself to the top of her bed where she stopped moving again.

Kirie rolled her eyes and tried pulling the sheets out from under Aurora.

"Alright you moose, move so I can get your sheets out."

Aurora half -heartedly wiggled around, looking more like worm then helping at all.

Kirie sighed and grabbed a blanket out of the closet instead and laid it over her sister's body. Then, feeling suddenly exhausted herself, she crawled in next to Aurora, turned over on her side, and fell asleep.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Review! Next chapter up soon!

---rayluva4


	3. Birthday Surprises

So I've decided that every update will be about every week, give or take a couple days.

Special thanks to: rebelmewpheonix and xCrazyKindOvWeirdx for reviewing and putting a smile on my face that lasted pretty much THE whole week! Thank you so much!

**Chapter 2: Birthday Surprises **

"Good morning sunshines!"

Kirie and Aurora both groaned through their pillows at the loud cheerful voice invading their ears and rattling their brains. A curtain was pulled back and a bright light suddenly fell over their exhausted bodies.

Kirie rolled over to her side and slowly cracked open her eyes. A shadow suddenly crossed over the sunlight over her head, and Porsha appeared in front of her.

"Well aren't you just the pentacle of joy on your eighteenth birthday," she smiled down at her sarcastically.

"Don't you know what the meaning of hangover is?" Aurora growled hoarsely. Kirie turned her head and saw that her sister's face was buried against her mattress and a pillow was planted over her head.

"Actually I came in here for Kir, because Nate's looking for her," the pink haired maid wiggled her eyebrows.

Kirie jerked up and tried rubbing the sleep form her eyes.

"How long has he been waiting?"

Porsha shrugged.

"Shit. Do I look horrible?"

Instead of waiting for an answer, Kirie planted her feet on the cold marble floor and hobbled over to the large mirror on the wall as fast as she could. Her reflection was a bit of a mess. Her blue-gray eyes were alert but they were ringed in red. Her dark hair was horrible after having been pulled from their pins last night and then not washed out of their curls to result in some really bad, really wild bed head. Her nightgown was disheveled, there were bags under her eyes, and there was even a sliver of drool in the corner of her mouth.

"Shit," Kirie sighed. She wiped the spit from her mouth and turned back to Porsha who was giggling behind her.

"Tell Nate I'll be out as soon as I can," she told the maid, and then headed towards Aurora's bathroom for a quick wash to clean herself of all traces of last night. That was the last time she was drinking and only getting four hours of sleep.

"No need to trip and kill yourself," Aurora grumbled, finally turning over and opening her eyes. She looked just as bad as her sister, if not worse, "Nate won't explode if he has to wait a little longer."

"Do you want me to bring you something to wear?" Porsha asked.

"Yeah please," the youngest princess said before disappearing inside the bathroom.

"Don't you have your own bathroom…and _room_," Aurora yelled after her.

"Your bathroom's closest."

Aurora rolled her eyes at the muffled answer. She looked at Porsha who was starting to go through the door that joined the two sister's rooms together.

"Close that curtain, would ya."

Porsha sighed, turned, and shut the room from the sunlight.

Aurora flopped back onto her bed happily and fell back asleep to the sound of the swashing water inside the bathroom.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

It was usually so hot in the summer, so it surprised Kirie that it was so cool and perfect outside. The sun was there above to warm your skin, but the cool breeze was there to cool you back off. Nate couldn't have picked a better to day to go horseback riding, and the weather sure couldn't have picked a better day then her eighteenth birthday to be so awesome.

Dressed in a short sleeved, v-neck, black dress and riding boots underneath, Kirie happily made her way towards the stables located at the west end of the castle where she was suppose to meet her lovely boyfriend.

Outside the stable someone was brushing out the white and black spotted mare her and her sister shared named Bella. Tied up next to Bella to one of the wooden posts of the fence that went around the barn a large blonde horse waited patiently with his saddle and reigns already secured on his body.

The man brushing out Bella's coat stopped to wipe away the sweat and black hair that stuck to his forehead with the back of his arm.

"Hey Gage," Kirie greeted pleasantly.

Gage turned and gave the princess a bright smile that reached his liquid hazel eyes.

"Hey kid, happy birthday," he said, tossing the brush to the ground, "Bella's almost ready for you."

Kirie chuckled mentally at the nickname. He always called her that even though he was only a year and a half her elder. Gage was one of her closest guy friends, always had been. He worked in the stables and was part of one of the families from her group of friends that lived in the castle. Porsha, his pink haired sister, was her and Aurora's maid, and his mom was her mother's maid, so it was just easier for them to live in the castle with the rest of the staff. The only one in his family who sometimes didn't stay over night was Ray, his father, who was a carpenter in the village.

After tossing aside the brush, Gage disappeared inside the stable and came back a couple minutes later with Bella's reigns and saddle.

While Gage put the saddle on, Kirie went up to the black and white horse and gently laid her hand on her nose to pet her. Bella was all white except for the large spot of black on her behind. Both Kirie and Aurora had shared Bella since they were little after their mom gave her to them, explaining that Bella was the offspring of her horse Serenity and their father's, Salem, and was very special.

Gage moved to put the reigns on and Kirie stepped out of the way.

As Gage pulled the reigns over the horse's head, Bella shifted the metal around in her mouth before settling for a position more comfortable.

Gage reached into his pocket and pulled out an apple to give to Bella who happily crunched down on it, sending bits of juice and apple spraying from her mouth.

"Good girl," he told her with a good rub on the side of the nose and then a firm pat.

Gage was always sweet on the horses, and was the same with people, which was one of the many things Kirie enjoyed about the guy.

Kirie suddenly sighed, not meaning too, but she was starting to worry about her father.

"I take it your dad doesn't know about you and Nate's ride together?"

Yet another thing Gage was good at: reading people. Sometimes it was annoying because she couldn't hide anything from him, and other times it saved her from embarrassing herself trying to explain what she was feeling. It was probably one of the things that made their relationship so strong.

Kirie shrugged casually, trying to play her anxiety off. Maybe if she pretended like she wasn't bothered, then she would stop worrying.

"He hasn't popped out of the shadows yet, so I guess not, but I hope he doesn't find out. I don't need him embarrassing me again."

It was Kirie's birthday wish that she'd be long gone down the trails before he found out and came to ruin her plans.

"Happy Birthday Kirie."

Kirie glanced over at the stable's entrance hearing Nate's low voice. He was wearing a thin white shirt that clung to his firm arms and broad chest, black pants, and rising boots. His dirty blond hair, as always, in it's perfect cuteness.

"Thanks," Kirie replied, blushing slightly and averting her lingering gaze when she realized she'd been staring openly at his arms and chest.

Gage rolled his eyes but no one noticed. He cleared his throat instead awkwardly.

"Bella and Scotch are both ready when you are."

"Were you ever planning on seeing me this morning so that I could wish you a happy birthday?"

Kirie's heart dropped. She turned and of course there was her dad looking as smug as ever. Behind him was one of the larger of the guards at the castle who Kirie didn't partially like all too much. He never talked and always intimidated her when he was in the same vicinity. His small steely dark eyes were trained on Nate at the moment, his burly arms crossed over his chest. The shirt he was wearing looked a couple sizes too small to be able to contain his muscle. At his waist was a sword and even a musket – one of the newer inventions at the castle, made by Gabe's dad, Kenny – only her dad's most trusted guards were allowed to have those.

Annoyance radiated off of Kirie in waves the size of a tsunami at her father.

Feeling the tenseness in the air, Gage quietly started backing away toward the stable. He escaped safety into the barn and away from the hostile group.

"So you're going on a ride…?" Kai inquired.

"Yes daddy," Kirie hissed through gritted teeth.

"What a coincidence. Jorge was just telling me how he's been itching to go on a ride, haven't you, Jorge?"

Kai turned and looked expectantly at the burly man behind him.

Jorge nodded – or well, twitched- and grunted.

"Good. You can all go together then."

Kirie's jaw dropped and she stared incredulously at her dad. She suddenly had the urge to throw the biggest tantrum right in front of everyone.

Coincidence her ass.

The king shamelessly stared right back and even had enough nerve to smile.

Kirie glared and their stare down began.

After a couple of uncomfortable minutes, Nate cleared his throat.

"Jorge, why don't you take Scotch?" he suggested as he addressed the guard and then motioned toward the already prepared blond horse.

"There's a good boy," Kai smirked, knowing he'd won again. That boy would never stand up to him. Being king did have its perks sometimes.

"Gage," he called toward the stables and the dark haired boy stuck his head out of the large doors.

"Sir?"

"Get the new horse ready for Nate to ride instead. Jorge will be taking Scotch."

Gage nodded and disappeared back inside.

New horse? Oh, right. Rosaline had given Kirie a new horse as a birthday present.

Gage walked back out with a brown and white spotted mare roped at the other end of the reigns he was holding.

"This is Millie," Gage said addressing Nate as he tied Millie up to the post next to the other horses.

Nate turned to Kirie with a pleasant smile.

"Ready?"

Kirie loved how Nate, for her sake, was trying hard to ignore everyone else so that it just seemed like they were going alone. She tired to forget her dad and Jorge's presence in the background too. She put on her best carefree smile and nodded.

Nate politely helped her upon Bella and then mounted Millie. After Jorge was also loaded on his horse, Nate and Kirie lead the way into the tails that snaked their way into the woods and away from the castle.

Kai watched triumphantly as they trotted away, There was no way that girl was ever sneaking anything by him. He knew everything that ever went on in his castle.

"I don't think she liked you too much after that," Gage teased, walking out of the barn with another horse to groom.

Kai shrugged. "She'll thank me one day," he paused, thinking the possibility over.

"…And if not, well I don't like the guy much anyway."

Gage laughed, shaking his head.

"Your to stubborn for your own good."

Kai scoffed and turned to walk back to the castle.

"You sound like your dad…and my wife."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"I hate dad."

"No you don't," Ana chided, giving her daughter a sideways scolding glance.

"He always ruins everything," Kirie continued whining, completely ignoring her mom.

"What'd he do this time?"

"He sent Jorge to escort me and Nate on our horse ride!" the princess exclaimed at her sister who was walking on the other side of her mother, "do you have any idea how embarrassing and annoying and completely _unnecessary_ that was!"

Aurora snorted. "That's not surprising."

"He just wants to protect you," Ana reasoned, "and besides, your father's not used to the idea of his baby daughter dating yet." And he enjoyed being an asshole. Ana smiled encouragingly anyway. "It'll take time but he'll get better."

"Unlikely," Kirie grumbled.

"Or once he gets bored torturing you two," the older sister giggled.

Kirie threw back her head to the blue sky and groaned loudly. The weather had managed to make it though the morning and lunch. Just like their guests, the royal women were taking advantage of the nice day by making their way to the open grounds of the castle to watch a football game between the men.

Behind Ana and her daughter, Porsha and Mariah trailed with blankets and umbrellas.

"I just wish he would butt out," Kirie mumbled to herself.

Already many of the women and older men – to old to participate in the violent games – were spread out on blankets, lounging under umbrellas around the makeshift football field where the teams were huddled on either ends, strategizing their first move of the game.

A shady spot under a large tree near one corner of the field had been reserved, so Porsha and Mariah set up the blankets and umbrellas they'd brought for the queen and her daughters.

Aurora was the first to place herself gracefully on the blankets when Porsha and her mom were done, tucking her legs gingerly under her, and arranging her yellow, spring dress over her creamy legs.

Kirie remained standing, longingly looking out at the two groups of guys huddled together. She immediately spotted Nate's head of dirty blond hair out of all the others.

"Could I possibly play a round?" she asked, looking out at them. She knew the answer before the question even left her mouth.

Ana felt herself smile. When she was Kirie's age, she would have loved to be out there with the boys too. She glanced around at all the other women and their daughters and granddaughters, grazing on their own blankets in the grass. Of course women couldn't play with the guys.

Weighted down by responsibility and maturity, Ana sat down on the material brought for her, laying herself out. She patted the empty spot next to her side.

"Common love, have a seat. Let's see which guys can hold their own."

Kirie reluctantly sat down.

The game began shortly after, and despite Kirie's former feelings of irritation and rebellion, she quite enjoyed the game.

On one team: Her dad, Tala, Tyson and his son Jayden, Gabe, a couple of younger guys that looked familiar from the party last night, and that foreign looking guy her sister had been talking to last night.

And on the opposite team: Nate – of course her dad would make it so he had the excuse to physically hurt the kid – Ray and Gage, Kenny, Max, Wes, and her brother Sebastian, plus some other guys she didn't know the names of.

Foreign dude turned out to be a pretty good quarterback for her dad's team, while putting Tyson and his son on the same team with her dad – who looked like he might strangle them both – turned out to be a bad idea. Kirie had to give her dad some credit though; he was pretty quick when he got the ball. The only problem was that Nate was quicker, younger, and on the opposite team. More than once he stuffed her dad, who Kirie knew already hated him, and tackling him didn't help. Her dad always seemed to get Nate back though. Somehow he always ended up making sure he tackled Nate the next time the blond got the ball no matter where he was on the field.

As much as she hated the idea at first, having her dad and her boyfriend on opposite teams turned out to be pretty entertaining.

Aurora also found it funny to watch the two fight it out.

Tyson was the first one to get a touchdown for his team, and then Nate got one right back for his, much to Kai's irritation. Sebastian got another one for Nate's team before foreign guy made an awesome run all the way down the field to score seven more points.

When an hour had passed, and still the two teams were tied, it was agreed that next touchdown would win. By now, Kirie could tell tempers were running pretty high; one team was not going to be very happy in the next couple minutes.

A coin was flipped and Nate's team got the ball to start. Under the shinning sun, the teams huddled close together.

The audience waited in silence for the ball to be put back into play.

Kirie was desperately praying that Nate's team won, and even though it was unlikely, she hoped Nate would rub it in her dad's face.

Sunlight glinted off the bare, sweaty backs of the guys huddled around each other, and Aurora couldn't help her roaming eyes. She turned to Porsha, who was sitting next to her, and whispered her finds in her ear. The pink haired maid snorted at the princess.

Finally the teams broke and walked to their positions on the field.

Nate had been elected quarter back. He got behind Wes, who flicked the ball back to him, and looked for an open teammate.

Out of nowhere, Kai came barreling through Nate's guards and tackled the blond boy right before he was getting ready to throw it. The tattered football dropped and fumbled around on the ground before Tala snatched it up and sprinted toward the touchdown.

Kirie's face fell. What the _hell_ was that?

Beside her, Aurora and her mom clapped encouragingly, as did the rest of the audience.

The teams shook hands and separated into the groups wanting to mingle.

Kirie saw Nate jogging toward her with a big smile on his face like he hadn't just get tackled by her dad and lost.

"Hey," he said breathlessly, leaning over and giving her a big wet kiss on the cheek. Kirie was too disappointed to blush at his kiss, or the fact that he was without and shirt and with a really nice looking chest. Yes, she would admit she was a bit of a sore loser.

Kai and Tala came walking over next, smiling the whole way. Tala was holding the football.

"Good game boys," Ana laughed, when Kai reached over and grabbed her around the waist to kiss her full on the mouth.

"Was my wife or daughter here?" Tala asked.

"No they're still in the kitchen," Ana replied, giving Tala an apologizing look, "I told them to take a break and get some fresh air for a while, but Gemma said they had too much to do."

Tala looked a little disappointed but shook it off and smiled anyway.

"You guys still kicked ass!"

Kai's glare at her language subsided when Aurora leaned over and gave him a big, sweet kiss on his cheek.

"I'm going to go give Sebastian crap," she said happily, and skipped off to find her brother.

"Good game, sir."

Kai looked to his right to see Nate holding out his hand to him, with a friendly smile on his face, and his youngest daughter at his side, giving Nate's out stretched hand a doubtfully stare.

Kai looked at the hand for a minute, and then smirked and shook it.

"You too, boy."

Her dad's tone wasn't normal. Was that actual affection she heard? Kirie stared at her dad. He was smirking but his eyes were friendly, the only thing that was wrong with this picture was that Nate was on the other end of that handshake.

…This was good.

Kirie smiled hopefully. They were starting get along! She didn't hate her dad so much anymore.

"I think we should start getting ready for your party," Ana said, addressing Kirie. She held out her arm for her daughter to take.

Kirie reluctantly pulled herself away from the male bonding that was going on and hooked Ana's arm around her own.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Aurora threw another dress on top of the pile that was already accumulating on top of the maid's outstretched arms.

She was in her mother's dressing room with her mom and sister, trying to find something to wear to this party that was only two hours away. She hadn't tried on any dresses so far, but she sure had a lot to go through. She looked at the poor little brown headed maid that was following her as she scoured the racks of dresses and threw them at the girl.

Her mother's dressing room wasn't actually a little dressing room that you might try on a couple things in. It was actually like a huge closet. It was connected to the master bedroom and acting like a closet around the perimeter, with hanging dresses and racks of jewelry and shoes around the walls. The middle was open and had more space to move around with many mirrors set up and attached to walls.

"Just a couple more, Jen, I promise," Aurora assured her as she piled another dress onto the growing mobile pile the maid, Jen, was supporting.

Jen, who couldn't have been any older then Kirie, nodded and grunted out a response as she strained to catch the dress that missed and almost fell off the pile.

Aurora looked back at her mom to see how she was doing with her dresses.

Her eyes grew wide.

"Mom, get that thing off."

"What? You don't like it?"

Ana was standing on a raised platform that was sitting in front of a large mirror on the wall, which was surrounded by two other mirrors on each side of it to get more angles of the person in front of it. She was wearing a tight purple dress with thin sleeves that pushed her chest up and out more than it should.

Aurora shook her head frantically. "Your boobs are spilling out of that thing, and you look trashy."

Ana inspected herself from the side.

"I don't look 'sexy'?"

"No. Trashy."

"I don't think Dad would approve," Kirie said. The younger daughter was sitting in a chair in front one of the dressers, waiting patiently for Porsha to finish her hair.

"I could let it out of you'd like," Mariah, who was standing next to Ana, offered.

"Nah, it's not that great of a dress anyway."

Aurora sighed, going back to her dress shopping.

"That would have made Dad mad, and you know it," she said over her shoulder.

Ana struggled out of the dress with help from Mariah.

"Some of the best highlights of my day consist of pissing your dad off," the queen admitted, smirking sheepishly.

"Tell us the story again about how you guys met," Aurora begged suddenly, whirling around to pout at her mom. She loved hearing that story. It was so romantic, and she imagined herself getting swept off her feet too just like her dad did with her mom. Aurora wanted her love life to be as adventurous as her parents' had been, but just with more variety.

Kirie groaned loudly.

"How many times have we heard this?" she whined. "Ten was good for me."

"Please mom?" Aurora begged.

Ana smiled.

"As long as you keep getting ready as I tell it. We still have to be out of this room by the same time."

Aurora knew she would win; she always did. She imagined her mom loved talking about it just as much as Aurora loved to hear it.

Kirie on the other hand groaned again.

Ana was silent for a moment as Mariah zipped up the back of another dress, and gathered her thoughts.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"Your life was so romantic, don't you think. Kir?"

"I thought it kind of lost its muster after the twentieth time I heard it," said girl replied sarcastically.

"I hope I find a guy like daddy," Aurora said dreamily, completing ignoring her sister's jibes.

Ana smiled, lovingly. "You will. It might take some time, but you will."

"I like that dress by the way," Kirie complimented her mom. The princess had pulled up a chair and was sitting close to her mom so she could watch the progress the queen was having. Kirie was already dressed in a deep blue, scoop neck gown and her hair was done in dark little twist at the base of her neck. The dress in the back was open and plunged down the length of her back.

The dress Ana was trying on was much the same in the back. It stopped just above her waist, but had two straps that crisscrossed over her upper back. It was black and the front was cut in a low v-neck that exposed a fair share of chest.

Aurora turned her head carefully and looked – not wanting to mess up the curly ponytail Porsha was creating. She had picked out a dress before her mom was done, and was now waiting for her hair to be finished.

"See, now that's sexy, but it's elegant too instead of trashy," Aurora agreed, "I like it.'

Ana sighed, inspecting herself in the mirror, but with a frown instead of a smile.

"The front isn't too much?" she asked, rotating her finger in circles around her chest.

"A perfect balance," Mariah assured her. Both Aurora, Kirie and Porsha nodded.

Ana sighed again, looking disappointed still.

"My boobs are getting saggy."

Aurora sighed, rolling her eyes, while Kirie gave her mom an exasperated stare.

"Mom, you're only, what? Thirty-five?"

"Thirty-nine," Ana corrected.

"Whatever. You look hot," Aurora said.

Ana shook her head.

"Thanks girls, but I don't think I'm going to wear it."

"Yes, you are going to wear it," Kirie demanded. She turned to Mariah. "You better not let her take that off."

Mariah laughed. "Ok, it's permanently glued to your body now, sorry."

Ana sighed again, but by now she was smiling also.

"Alright, alright," she laughed, "You talked me into it."

"Great!" Kirie clapped happily, "You're finally done, and just in time too. The party's probably getting ready to start pretty soon."

"You got a little less than an hour actually," Porsha corrected, concentrating on the last bit of Aurora's hair. She curled one more piece of the princess's white ponytail and stood back to admire her work.

"Awesome, you're done," she said happily.

Aurora turned her head from side to side in the mirror.

"Looks good, Porsh, thanks." She stood up and brushed off her red dress. In the mirror she adjusted her boobs comfortably in the strapless top. She turned around to try and inspect the corset styled back of the dress.

"Everything looks good back there?" she asked her maid.

"Perfect," Porsha answered.

"Fantastic, I'm gonna go see what shoes I can wear from my room. See you guys at the party."

Ana watched her oldest daughter leave. "Why don't you do the same."

"You sure you're ok?" Kirie asked.

"Oh yeah, we'll be done soon, won't we, Mari?"

The pink haired maid nodded.

"You don't mind if Porsha gets ready now do you?"

"No, that sounds like a great idea. We'll see you girls down stairs in an hour," Ana answered.

Kirie shrugged and picked herself off her chair and left with Porsha following her.

"Any ideas what you're gonna wear?" the princess asked her maid.

Porsha smiled sheepishly.

"I was hoping to raid your closet," she admitted.

"Be my guest…hey why don't you wear that hideous green dress Livvy opened last night?" Kirie suggested with a snort.

"Ha, yeah right."

Just as the girls were leaving the master bedroom and heading down the hall, Kia appeared around the corner, dressed and ready for the party.

"Where's your mom?'

Kirie threw a thumb behind her. "Still getting ready."

Kai rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. He walked past the girls toward his bedroom, wondering why it always took forever for any girl to get ready. He opened the bedroom door and went straight for the dressing room. Inside the brightly lit room, Kai found his wife sitting at one of the dressers – wearing a very appealing dress, he might add – while Mariah was brushing out her long white hair.

"How long do you really need to get ready?"

Ana turned to her husband.

"I gotta look good," she shrugged, smiling. She motioned for Mariah to stop brushing her hair, and she stood up to face Kai. "Do you like my dress?"

Kai looked his wife up and down, trying to seem casual, because of course he liked the dress, but he knew that look she was giving him. She was challenging him, teasing him. Well, two could play this game. He leveled his gaze back up, concentrating on not letting his eyes linger on her almost bare chest.

"Its fine," he shrugged, giving her an cool stare.

Ana huffed and put a hand on her hip. "Just fine?"

Mariah looked from the King to the Queen and back. This was one of those power trips they were having. Who was the bigger person. Who could outwit the other. Who was weaker. Well, Mariah didn't want any part of it. She cleared her throat.

"Are you ok from here?"

Ana didn't need to look at her. She was too busy staring at Kai. "Yeah, thanks."

Mariah nodded and hurried out of the room.

Silence separated the power hungry couple for a minute.

"So, what's so fine about it?" Ana finally asked, an idea forming its way into her head. She slowly, sensuously walked towards him, a sexy little smirk on her lips.

Kai shrugged. "The color is nice."

"It's black, Kai," Ana raised her eyebrow.

"Well, then, it's very flattering, I guess."

"Anything else," she purred. Ana was right up on him now giving him the most seductive stare she could muster.

Kai could feel her hot breath fan out across his face. For a split second his control wavered and his eyes betrayed his composure; the dark irises had flickered downward, but too late, because Ana caught them.

"Nice," she smirked, mocking the frustrated glare he was giving her.

"You should put some clothes on if you don't want people to look," Kai spat defensively. He hated to lose.

Ana shrugged and stepped up closer until their foreheads touched.

"I didn't say I didn't like you looking. All I did was ask what you like about my dress, you didn't have to make it so complicated."

Kai violently crushed his lips over hers before she could say anything else. Ana was all too happy to push back and give a sexy little moan to send Kai off the deep end. He grabbed her behind to hoist her up to his waist, while Ana hitched up her dress at the thighs and wrapped her legs around his hips.

Kai carried her into the main part of their room and threw her back down onto their bed before crawling on top of her, continuing to kiss her.

Ana broke the kiss to breath. Kai moved to her neck and then straight for the bare chest that was driving him so crazy. Ana bit her lip, suppressing another moan. She ran her hands down his back and up again to twist her fingers through his hair.

With the hand that wasn't hitching Ana's black dress up higher on her leg, he pushed over the fabric that was covering her left breast, exposed the mound, and bought his kisses to it.

Ana gasped loudly. She briefly wondered if this was such a good idea…the party would be starting soon, and what did they think they were doing! Kai wasn't helping either, or only cared about his own schedule. She arched her back, pushing her body tighter into his, and grabbed the back of his head pulling him closer against herself when he starting giving her chest a couple playful nips.

"Ok…we need to…get to the…party," Ana panted, between moans.

Kai stopped assaulting her left breast and looked up at her.

"We'll get to the party when we get to the party," he answered simply. To him this was better than a million parties.

Kai moved back up to her lips. Ana closed her eyes and slipped her tongue into his mouth, loving his familiar taste. Fine with her…well not that fine, it wasn't polite to leave their guests hanging or their daughter on her birthday, but Kai was being very persuasive. She sighed happily into their kiss, letting her worries go.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Normally Kirie didn't really give a rat's ass what she was wearing or which sparkling things she was wearing with whatever it was she was wearing. But right now she did care. A lot. And she was wearing a dress she knew she looked good in, and she wanted to wear jewelry that she thought looked the best with it. But she couldn't find it. The _one_ time she wanted it, it just had to go off and hide itself.

No matter. She knew her mom would know where it was.

Moms had a keen sense of knowing where things were when you had no idea.

Kirie walked down the long hallway from her room to her parent's master room, her matching royal blue heels making clipping noises all the way down. She approached the large wooden door and twisted the handle to go inside.

"Hey mom, have you seen – _Whoa_!"

When the door had suddenly swung open, Kai stopped kissing Ana and looked up to see his youngest daughter standing staring in his door way, her mouth wide open and her eyes in disturbed shock.

Ana's eyes snapped open and she pushed Kai off of her to sit up. She instantly went into worried mommy mode, forgetting what her and Kai looked like right then.

"What's wrong, Kirie," she demanded, frantically searching her daughter for answers.

Suddenly, Tyson was next to Kirie and looking curiously into the room after having been walking down the hallway when he heard Kirie scream. As soon as he saw Ana and Kai's tousled looks and they way they were positioned on their bed, Tyson's jaw dropped.

An awkward silence lingered for a couple moments. By now, both Kai and Ana looked like deer in the headlights. Finally, Tyson's mouth turned up into an knowing smirk.

"Common guys, it's broad daylight…couldn't you have waited till later?"

Still in a state of shock and disgust, Kirie shook her head, trying to clear it, then turned around and walked out the door. "I'm leaving," she stated bluntly.

Ana frowned, irritated at Tyson still standing in her doorway. "Shut the door," she snapped.

Tyson put his hands up into a surrendering position. "Alright, alright," he mumbled, still grinning as he turned to leave, closing the door behind him.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Ana sighed loudly, pushing Kai the rest of the way off of her.

"I told you that was a bad idea," she glared at him, straightening her dress then running a hand through her tangles.

Kai raised his eyebrows.

"Kirie's old enough to know that mommy and daddy still have hormones," he replied.

"Doesn't mean she hasn't to see it."

Ana sighed again and got off her bed and moved in front of the mirror next to the bed. She pulled her hair back and started braiding the end.

Kai got up to and walked up behind Ana. He cupped her neck with one hand and leaned down to kiss the other side of it.

"Whatever," he muttered into her skin, sending her spin tingling. He went for the bathroom then.

"You're not getting off that easily though," he yelled back to her from the bathroom, "We'll be finishing this later.

Ana rolled her eyes at his demanding tone. She wrapped her finished braid into a low bun and secured it.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Kirie rounded the corner and nearly ran into Aurora and Sebastian at the top of the stairs. Her brother was wearing a nice black tux and pants, but his tie was missing. He was holding two in his hands while her sister inspected them intently.

Aurora briefly glanced up at Kirie and then back down at the ties: a solid blue and a stripped blue one.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, uninterested.

Kirie opened her mouth to answer but found that she couldn't. She tried to imagine what her face looked like right now. Probably a fish. A fish that just bit onto a hook and lived.

Sebastian looked up, his face twisting into worried confusion when his sister didn't answer.

"Kir?"

"Kirie just walked in on your parents having some 'quality time' together," Tyson answered for the princess as he came around the corner to the stairs. He winked to add dramatic effect.

Kirie watched her brother and sister for some kind of reaction. She expected them to be disgusted, but instead her sister got that ' Aww, that's so adorable' look on her face. Sebastian at least had the decency to look a little bit disgusted.

"How romantic! Talking about the time when they first met must have brought back some good memories," Aurora gushed

Sebastian gave her a weirded-out look.

"Ok, that was a bit too far."

Kirie's mouth fell open.

"There is nothing romantic about our parents doing the nasty…it's disgusting," she replied incredulously.

"For those of us without a soul, maybe," Aurora retorted.

"For those of us without _eyes_."

"Ok, so it's a little gross – "

"A little!?"

" – but seriously, Kir, how do you think we were all conceived? Immaculate conception?"

"And just because mom and dad are mom and dad doesn't mean they don't have urges like everyone else," Aurora added to what her brother said.

Kirie's eyes widened at her siblings. She put her hands over her ears and walked down the stairs, totally forgetting about her necklace and everything.

Tyson raised both his eyebrows at Sebastian and Aurora.

"Yeah, this is getting just a little too weird…." He turned to leave also.

"You and Hilary do it," Aurora yelled after him defensively.

"Yeah, but that's me and Hil," he answered, "I don't want to hear about Kai and Ana."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"Do you think anyone saw?"

"Nah, your golden, Porsh."

Porsha put a palm over her stomach and exhaled.

"Good."

Aurora eyed the back of the silver dress and her handy work. She could see the small stitches she had just made at the waist of Porsha's dress, but that was only because she was familiar with it. Anyone at a distance or anyone who didn't know what to look for would never notice it.

The rip in the beautiful sliver dress had been small, but Porsha had pretty much come crying to Aurora in embarrassment. Aurora couldn't even see the girl's underwear beneath the rip, but she made quick work of it. She got a servant to find her some string and a needle and fixed up the dress right there in the shadows of the dance floor.

"Do you think Kirie will be mad?"

Aurora gave Porsha a confused look, but the pink haired girl was glancing at Kirie, who was too busy on the dance floor with Nate to notice Porsha's nervous hazel eyes on her.

"Kirie has a million and one dresses. She doesn't care about a little rip that can be fixed," Aurora assured her, "I bet she forgets you even have it."

Porsha exhaled again, looking relieved.

"Seriously," Aurora chuckled. She put a hand on her maid's shoulder comfortingly. "It's fine. Chill."

Porsha nodded. "Yeah, ok. Thanks again," she smiled.

"Why don't you go talk to that guy you were gonna talk to before your dress ripped."

Porsha bit her lip, hesitating to answer.

"Yes, you're going," Aurora demanded when she saw her friend's confidence falter. She gave Porsha a solid shove toward the blond guy she was now eyeing.

"You look gorgeous, don't waste it."

Porsha clenched her fists, determinedly. "You're right," she sniffed. She squared her shoulders and walked her way through the crowd.

Aurora watched her short, scrunched, pink head of hair walk away. Nope, couldn't tell the dress was broken at all. She imagined it was probably pretty easy to rip with the way it was made; easy to snag something on. The back of the dress consisted of diamond shaped openings, starting large at the middle of the wear's back and getting smaller as it reached their waist.

The princess leaned back against the pillar behind her. She looked around, searching for any guys that caught her eye. Cute, tall boy by the drinks. Sturdy hottie near the orchestra talking to Gabe as he conducted. Gorgeous tanned god hanging out by her brother.

Hmmm. So many to choose from. She wasn't really sure she was in the flirting mood though, believe it or not. She was actually really bored of the diversity of this group; another one needed to be switched out.

To ease her boredom instead, she concentrated on the people she knew.

Porsha looked like she was having luck with blondie over by the thrones where her mom and dad were sitting. Like she observed before, Gabe was talking to sturdy hottie, and Sebastian mingled with tanned god and his less attractive friends. Wes was dancing with Rosaline, Gage looked like he made some new, older friends - one of whom looked like Santa clause - Livvy was serving food in a light blue, one sleeved dress Aurora just realized she really liked, and Kirie was just breaking up her dance with Nate to mingle with other people.

Some might think of it as spying, but Aurora preferred 'people watching'. She liked to know what was going on, especially when she was bored.

"Hey, why the long face? Jealous your sister's getting all the attention tonight? "

Jayden appeared next to her with an expression of sarcasm.

Aurora smiled, humoring him, but shrugged.

"I might be a little bored," she replied, looking out into the crowd, "where did all the guys go?"

An eyebrow raised over one of Jayden's brown eyes.

"What happened to that one guy you were talking to? Kinda foreign looking…?"

Aurora gave Jayden a funny look. "How did you know about him?"

"I know things."

Aurora snorted. "Ok, well, I'm done with him."

"Done as in…?"

"As in we already hooked up this morning and now I'd like someone new."

The initial rush of foreign hottie was defiantly gone now. Sure, he was a good kisser, but not so interesting anymore.

Jayden whistled. "Wow, that was fast. How'd you mange that after the killer hangover I'm sure you had this morning?"

"How did you - never mind, I don't wanna know."

"It's no big secret," Jayden explained, shrugging. "But Livvy and Porsha looked like zombies going into work this morning."

Aurora laughed. "Yeah, I guess we all kind of felt like that. But that's not enough to stop me from a hook up, Jay."

"Touché," Jayden agreed with a smirk.

Aurora laughed and absently turned her attention back to the crowd, not expecting the dark haired boy across the floor with bright green eyes to catch her attention. He was on the short side, maybe a little shorter then her, but he had this bad boy look about him. Maybe it was his tousled hair. Maybe it was the way he held himself, one foot slightly in front of the other, weight resting on one hip. Or it could have been the way his full lips moved as he talked to the girl next to him - a girl she knew she would win against - or the confident way he downed his glass and quickly picked up a new one as a waiter passed.

Whatever it was, Aurora was mesmerized. This was mysterious bad ass boy, and Aurora like mysterious bad asses.

Maybe they didn't need to switch out the people at this party after all, but how could she have missed this guy….? Maybe he had just come for tonight. He had too have. There was no way she would have missed him if he'd had been there last night.

Jayden might have asked her a question but she wasn't sure.

"Are you ok?" he asked, waving a hand in front of the girl's face.

"Yep," she muttered, distracted.

Jayden caught the hint and followed her gaze. He snorted.

"Are you gonna talk to him?"

Aurora nodded.

"You need a drink, don't you?"

Jayden waited, then finally nodded firmly.

"You need a drink."

He left Aurora then and her obvious scheming, and headed towards the closest waiter carrying drinks.

As soon as he was close enough. Jayden swiped two glasses, one for him, one for Aurora, and started walking back to his friend.

Out of no where, his mom's voice broke though the crowd and yelled his name.

Jayden turned left, then right. She was pushing her way through the crowd toward him. When she finally saw that she had his attention, Hilary motioned for her son to come to her.

"What, mom?" Jayden hissed, annoyed.

"Come here," she mouthed to him.

Jayden sighed exasperated, and looked down at the glasses in his hands, wondering what he was going to do with them now.

"I'll take those, Jay," a deep voice suggested, tapping the brown headed boy on the shoulder. Jayden turned around to come face to face with a smiling Nate.

"Thanks," Jayden smiled, handing the glasses over. "_Mi madre _is calling," he said with a roll of his eyes.

"You were taking one to Aurora, right?"

Jayden didn't ask how he knew that and nodded anyway. His mom was getting a seriously pissed off face and he knew he better hurry up and get his ass over to her.

"Yeah, you have the other one," he answered, distracted from something else his mom was trying to say to him. "See ya," he muttered before leaving the blond.

Nate turned to where he knew Aurora was still standing and walked to her.

"From Jayden," he smiled charmingly, handing it over to the white headed princess.

Aurora broke her gaze away from mysterious bad boy when she didn't recognize the voice that was supposed to be Jayden's. Instead she was surprised to see Nate standing next to her, smiling, and offering her one of the two champagne glasses in his hands. She carefully took one from him.

"Where's Jayden?"

"Something with his mom came up so he asked me to deliver that to you," Nate explained, glancing at the glass in her hands.

"Oh, well, thanks." Aurora smiled back, trying not sound awkward. She put the glass to her lips and took a sip, looking anywhere but at her sister's creepy boyfriend. Aurora was kind of hoping he would play polite messenger boy and then leave her alone.

"Enjoying the party?"

Apparently she wasn't so lucky.

Aurora took a deep breath to calm her nerves, put on her best courtesy face, and turned to Nate.

"It's been good so far," she answered, "but as long as Kirie is enjoying herself then it doesn't matter."

"I wouldn't worry about her, she's been telling me ever since the party started that's it's been one of her best birthdays."

Aurora rolled her eyes playfully and took another drink. "I think that has less to do with the party and presents and more to do with _you _being here."

Nate laughed. He had a very pleasant laugh; it was very throaty and deep, but sincere none the less. Not one of those forced laughs at her expense that everyone can tell are fake, but a genuine laugh. Aurora smiled as his shoulders moved up and down; she liked his laugh.

"Well," Nate said after calming down. "She ditched her favorite part of the party then just a couple minutes ago."

Aurora shook her head. "Porsha was probably wanting to talk to her, no big deal."

"Porsha's the maid, right?"

"Yeah," the princess nodded, "we share her."

"You guy's seem like you get along with her really well…your whole little group of friends actually."

Aurora shrugged. "All our parents are really good friends, have been for a long time," she explained. "My mom ended up choosing my dad to marry and eventually their whole group paired up with each other and, well yeah. Here we are."

Nate was smirking. He was looking up to where her mom and dad were sitting.

"So your mom's the blood heir, huh? Could have fooled me."

Aurora laughed. "My dad my seem like just the asshole all kings are born to be, but believe it or not, my mom has that man wrapped around her finger."

"Oh, there's no doubt in my mind she does." Nate gave Aurora a sideways smile and gave her that look that told her he was defiantly on the same page as she was. Aurora liked that, she could tell a guy was really listening to what she was saying. Despite her first impression of Nate, he was something different then the guys she normally hunted for. He was a fresh change, and the princess found herself enjoying his company after all.

Nate took big drink out of his glass and cleared his throat.

"So who exactly is all in this big group of yours? Kirie's introduced me to a lot of them, but I'm not sure if I've met all of them or not."

Aurora scanned through the crowd. She spotted Livvy and her bright red hair first. "That's Livvy; you've met her brother Wesley. As you can see she works in the kitchen with her mom." Next was Gabe in front of his orchestra. "And Gabriel," she said, pointing over heads, "You might have met him already though."

"Briefly."

"He's one of the nicest guys you'll meet. A little genius too. This is his music that they're playing now. Much of the music we play at parties we asked him to compose - and there's Porsha…and Gage, over there, with my brother, of course. And Jayden, but you know him."

Nate looked impressed. "Wow. I really envy you guys," he admitted, "things aren't like this where I'm from. The line separating the lower class and middle class, and servant from royalty is thick."

"That's too bad. It makes life a lot more enjoyable if you have variety of friends."

Aurora threw her head back and downed the rest of her glass.

"So what's the need for all the booze?"

Aurora struggled to swallow all the hot liquid in her mouth. She winced as it burned down her throat and pointed across the room where the mysterious boy she's been eyeing before was now dancing with that same blond from before. She had a pretty dress on, Aurora would admit, but her clinginess to the boy she'd been preying on was starting to piss her off. Just wait until she got over there, then she'd really show that girl who was boss…literally.

Aurora loved having power almost as much as she loved the attention that came with it.

"I'm about to go talk to that dark haired guy over there," the princess rasped out.

Nate squinted in the direction she was pointing in. "Who him?" he pointed also.

Aurora nodded, a little confuse. He sounded familiar with the mysterious bad boy.

"Oh, that's Stephen," Nate explained, giving Aurora another charming smile. "He's actually a really good friend of mine. We're from the place; both our dad's are friends too."

Aurora stared at Nate. He shifted under her stare. "I uh, could introduce you if you want."

"Uhh…" suddenly Aurora wasn't so interested in bad boy Stephen anymore, but the guy standing right in front of her who was giving her a weird look and wondering why she was still starting at him.

"So…?"

The princess blinked, bringing herself back. She suddenly felt really hot. Was it warm in there or was it just her? She put the back of her hands to her cheeks which felt like they were on fire, and her stomach was doing weird flips. This feeling wasn't right. This was her sister's boyfriend. This was a boy who was most defiantly not for sale.

Maybe she was sick. She probably had too much to drink.

"Yeah, uh, thanks that's very nice of you, but I think I'm going to pass….feeling a bit sick, excuse me."

Aurora mumbled her way passed a confused looking Nate, and started searching for Porsha. When she found her pink haired maid still taking to Kirie, she interrupted and ordered her to go upstairs to get her a fan.

"What's wrong, Rory…wow you look pale, are you ok?"

Aurora gave her sister and maid her best forced smile. No, she wasn't ok, but it was nothing for them to know, especially not Kirie. Aurora felt sick - disgusted even - at feeling what she was for her sister's boyfriend; a guy that made Kirie so happy…ugh, she felt dirty and she hadn't really done anything!

"Yeah, just feeling a little hot," Aurora lied, "it's becoming unpleasant, so Porsh, if you'd please…"

Porsha nodded sympathetically and left.

Aurora suddenly felt really awkward standing next to her sister who was staring worriedly at her. Kirie should be more worried about her boyfriend and who he talks to -

She shook her head violently, throwing the thought away.

Kirie looked so concerned now it almost made her look scared.

"Are you -"

"Yep! I'm gonna go find something to drink now," Aurora hurried off to the refreshment table, hoping Kirie wasn't following her.

Even ten minutes later, when Aurora was nervously sipping her third glass of champagne, she still didn't feel any different, and Porsha was taking an awful long time to find a little fan. The princess scanned the party for the umpteenth time for her maid from the shadows of a pillar excluded from the rest. She figured she would stay out of trouble and from her friends asking what was wrong if she hid out away from everyone else.

Aurora finished her glass, felt her head spin a bit, and then pushed off from her pillar, determined to find Porsha…or a fan, whichever came first.

She couldn't believe this was even happening to her. Things like this, boys, didn't make Aurora feel like this, her sister's boyfriend or not. It was the other way around, and that's how she wanted to keep it. So why was this happening now? Was it because Nate was the farthest thing from available, when she was so used to getting whatever she wanted? That had to be it. Aurora was so used to perusing and getting what she had her mind set on, that now she wanted something more exciting, off limits. She wanted what she knew she couldn't have.

Aurora was determined _not_ to betray her sister.

She would _not_ tempt Nate.

"Hey where are you going?"

Of course it was Kirie, grabbing her arm and stopping her, and giving her a worried look.

"Porsha's taking too long, I'm going to go look for her."

"That's not necessary, I'll do it, you relax," the dark haired sister ordered.

Aurora held her back. "Really, it's ok. It'll do me good to get out of this scene for a while." She smiled reassuringly. Kirie didn't look totally convinced, but let go anyway.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Something was up with her sister. Since when did Aurora sulk in the shadows of a party looking pale and paranoid instead of parting up with every gorgeous guy around? She didn't look ok, that was for sure, but was it because she was really ill or was something bothering her?

It kind of hurt Kirie that her sister didn't think she could confide in her.

And where was Nate? She had been looking for him ever since Aurora had told her she was going upstairs to look for Porsha. Kirie had thought that maybe Nate might know what was wrong with Aurora since Kirie noticed they were talking together earlier.

They had looked like they were getting along but maybe Aurora didn't like Nate and didn't know how to tell her?

Kirie let out the third frustrated humph in the last five minutes and snatched a toothpick of green and black olives off the tray of a passing waiter. She threw it into her mouth, flicked the toothpick to the floor carelessly, and started viciously chewing.

Kirie didn't practically like feeling like this on her birthday. Why was there always some sort of drama surrounding Aurora that she always got sucked into it? Along with the brightest spotlight, that girl was born with drama.

Suddenly, Kirie felt something or someone tap her on the shoulder. When she turned around it was Porsha holding out a red fan.

"Have you seen Rory? I've got her fan." Porsha looked confused.

"She just went upstairs to look for you actually," the princess answered.

Porsha sighed, "Alright, I'll be back in a second."

"I'll do it," Kirie stopped her maid by grabbing her upper arm. She reached for the paper fan.

"Ok…" Porsha said slowly, "but it's your party are you sure you want to leave -"

"I'll be right back,' Kirie assured her and in turn Porsha shrugged and walked off, leaving Kirie to head up stairs to look for her sister by herself.

It wasn't as deserted upstairs as Kirie thought it would be. Several maids still hurried about, most likely preparing more rooms and getting the old ones cleaned for the last night of guests.

Kirie walked down the hall of the floor her and her sister's room was on, first looking in her own and then Aurora's room for the lost girl. Kirie started down the hallway again, wondering where in the world Aurora could have wondered off to.

She asked a couple of busy maids with arms full of laundry if they'd seen her sister and they both replied that they saw her heading toward the stairs.

Kirie turned another corner into the hallway that led to the main stairs when she heard a dull thump. She stopped, alarmed by the crash, and looked around. There were closed doors leading to rooms on her left and right, but there was one that was slightly ajar on the right.

Curious if maybe one of the maids had fallen or dropped something, Kirie moved toward the room only to noticed that it was oddly dark in there. If a maid was in there cleaning, wouldn't she want a light on?

Her next thought was that maybe someone was robbing them. Her heart took a lurch in her chest and started beating rapidly. Now would be the perfect time for a thief to steal something when everyone was either busy or occupied with the party downstairs.

Kirie slowly leaned for the knob, her heart hammering and her breath shallow with fear, but once again curiosity got the best of her and she threw open the door the second her hand met the cold iron of the knob.

Inside it was completely dark, but Kirie could make out noises. There was a feminine gasp of surprise, followed by a few low grunts of struggle, and finally the rustling of fabric.

Kirie reached for the torch that was settled into its holder on the wall just outside the door and brought it inside the room to light the torch just inside to the right of the dark room.

Immediately, everything within several yards of the fire's radius lit up and what Kirie could now see, well, she couldn't believe.

There in the middle of the floor, Aurora was struggling to get up, her lips swollen, her eyes wide and alert, her cheeks red, and her person tousled. Next to her, Nate was standing looking straight at Kirie. His normally neat kept hair was wild and misplaced along with his clean, and crisp tux. What stood out most that Kirie could see though was the obvious guilt on his face, like a child who had just got caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

For a minute everything was silent. Kirie stared at Nate and her sister, and Nate and Aurora stared right back.

"What's going on?"

She noticed Aurora visibility flinched at her sharp, bitter tone. Her voice surprised herself also; she hadn't meant for it to come out sounding so hateful. But now that she let the sound run though her, Kirie realized that she was mad, seething actually.

Kirie understood what she saw; she wasn't stupid.

Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Nate was just some guy when you got down to it, but Aurora, her _sister_, she wouldn't do that to her, would she?

Kirie took a deep breath, clamed herself, and then tried again.

"What's going on?"

Aurora was standing now, but she wouldn't meet Kirie's gaze. Instead the older princess tugged at the red fabric of her dress near her hip. Nate didn't seem to know what to stay either.

"Nate?" Kirie snapped; she could feel her anger coming back at their silence; their lack of explanation was telling Kirie that her first assumption was right. "Aurora?"

"Somebody better start explaining. _Now_."

Her voice had become loud enough to attract two maids that had been working in the bedrooms at the end of the hallway. They curiously walked toward Kirie, asking if everything was alright, and obviously curious as to what was going on.

Kirie ignored them. She put a hand on her hip and glared expectantly at her boyfriend and sister.

"Look," Nate finally said, running a hand though his messy blond hair, "I was coming back from the bathroom, and then I ran into her and she just…" he trailed off, shaking his head accusingly. "I don't know."

Kirie's eyes snapped back to her sister, waiting for her to defend herself, but Aurora remained silent. Much to Kirie's annoyance, tears of hurt gathered under her eyes. But it wasn't all because she knew Nate was lying, which was obvious because if it had been Aurora taking advantage of him, he would have stopped her; it would have been easy since he was twice her size. No, he welcomed it, just like any other guy would, and now he was trying to cover it up.

What really hurt Kirie was how betrayed she felt. Aurora knew how much Nate meant to her, so why couldn't she just leave this one guy for her. Was she really that selfish?

"You _slut_."

Kirie's menacing words cut through the silence and pierced Aurora's heart. "I can't believe you."

"Kirie," Aurora croaked, tears in her eyes, "wait, I didn't -"

"You didn't what?" the other sister snapped. Her voice was raising, become high and tight through her anger. "You thought you could just fuck my boyfriend and I wouldn't find out?"

"No, it's not like that," Aurora pleaded.

"I know what I saw!" Kirie screamed. The maids jumped back at her loud voice. She leveled an accusing finger at her sister. "You've always had everything, but you just couldn't stand to see me have the one thing you didn't!"

Suddenly Kirie turned the finger on Nate.

"And you…you asshole, get out of my house!"

Nate was so surprised by the suddenly attack on him that he just stared at her dumbly, not sure if he was hearing right.

"What?"

"You heard me, get out."

"Kirie," Nate started to say. He reached out for her but she back out of the doorway, away from him.

"Don't think that I don't know your role in this either. I'm not stupid, Nate," she hissed. "I'll have your belongings brought to the main door and arrange for a carriage to take you home. In the meantime you may wait downstairs and enjoy the rest of the party."

Nate looked like he was at a complete loss for words. Either that or he still doubted her sincerity.

"You can't be serious, Kirie, it's nearly midnight."

"I'm completely serious!" she screamed, by now tears were running freely from her eyes. She hastily wiped at them with the back of her hand.

Looking completely defeated and a bit annoyed, Nate walked passed Kirie and headed downstairs.

Kirie took a deep breath, instructed the scared looking maids still next to her to get Nate's things together and get a carriage ready, and then turned back to her sister who was still standing in the same spot in the dimly lit room.

Aurora had never seen her sister look so vulnerable and hurt before. Her blue gray eyes had already filled with more tears ready to spill over her cheeks when she quietly addressed her again.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" she whispered. Aurora knew she meant what happened.

The older sister opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Instead a large lump wedged it's self into her throat, and she shut it again.

Aurora looked lost at her question, but Kirie didn't care. The silence told her the only thing she needed to know.

The younger sister turned her back and walked away.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Questions? Comments?

---rayluva4


	4. Scattered

The only people who deserve a big fat cookie of their choice this time is **XCrazyKindOvWeirdX** and r**ebelmewpheonix**. Thanks again for an awesome reviews!

**Chapter 3: Scattered **

Kirie, a long time ago, had accepted that Aurora was better at getting the things she wanted and not having to work for them, while she did.

Fine. She knew that.

But how Aurora figured she could just take something that was already Kirie's, was beyond the younger princess's understanding. How could Aurora do that to her when she knew how happy she'd been with Nate. How could Aurora betray her _sister_?

Well, Kirie knew one thing: yesterday, her eighteenth birthday, had been the worst day of her life.

After finding her boyfriend cheating on her with her sister (like that wasn't enough to ruin her night), Kirie was then found and interrogated by Porsha before being forced to go back downstairs to her party, blow out eighteen candles on a huge cake that she decided she hated, have a room full of people sing to her, which she also decided she hated, and then sat herself in her throne and brooded.

Said brooding was satisfying Kirie just fine until her parents caught a little wind of the order that pertained to why Nate's things were outside along with a waiting carriage. So it was like twenty questions all over again for Kirie. She finally caved in annoyance and huffed out a short explanation while trying her hardest not to drown her parents in tears.

Did she tell them the whole story? Of course not. She didn't need her parents up in her business as well as everyone else she was sure would know by morning. Besides, it was mortifying to be tricked like she'd been.

For once, Kirie had actually been thankful that her father still despised Nate, because with the seven words, 'I never want to see him again,' Kai had ceased to ask questions and started barking orders legitimizing Kirie's previous orders while completely ignored his wife in the background.

As morning crept in and the sun started to rise over the dark hills, Kirie urged her new brown and white horse, Millie, on toward the creek that was located off the usual trails and deep into the dark forest surrounding her home.

Kirie had tossed and turned almost all night. After waking up when it was still dark outside, she had gotten dressed and decided she would take a ride down to this creek, where it would be dark and anonymous and she could keep on brooding. She was also afraid that Aurora might 'drop in' on her this morning to explain or apologize or try to make everything better, and Kirie didn't think she could face her just yet. Or ever. She supposed that made her a total bitch, but she was mad, and a part of her hoped that if she never saw her sister it would somehow erase what happened. If they never had that conversation, then it wouldn't be real.

Millie slowly walked down a steep dip to another narrow, old, grown-in trail below. The princess steered her left and deeper into the woods.

What was worse was that everyone and their mother pretty much knew what happened last night by now, because one thing that people like to do is gossip, and she knew that if one person knew something - like those maids who saw the whole thing- then everyone was going to know about it within the next couple hours. She didn't doubt that her parents already knew and she was positive her friends knew, and the truth was she didn't want to face them either. Not yet. She didn't feel like she could recap what happened yet and she hoped her parents would leave her alone too.

Kirie wanted to forget what hurt too much.

Light was slowly starting to peek through the trees when she arrived at the small creek.

As she dismounted Millie, tied her to a tree close enough for the horse to access the water, sat herself down on her favorite rock that was located in the middle of the creek, a thought ran across Kirie's mind that darkened her mood even farther. Nate was just a boy, - a sneaky cheater of a boy - and she knew she shouldn't miss him or be upset, but it made her think: would she always have to wonder if she was truly wanted like her older sister was by every guy she met, or would she merely just be settled for? It seemed like Nate had settled for her, but when he saw Aurora, Kirie was just left in the dust for something that was obviously more appealing to him.

First it depressed her, then it angered her. Were all guys the same? Why did they all have to fall for her sister's beauty and charm, when truthfully she was just vain and fickle? Did all guys want that kind of flakiness in a girl? And so selfish that she would betray her own sister to get what she wanted?

The younger princess couldn't seem to wrap her mind around it. To her left Millie gnawed on the ripe, green leaves of a nearby tree branch. All around her birds chirped loudly, which Kirie found very obnoxious, but the water had a soothing flow to it, and listening to it calmed her down.

She pulled her boots off and threw them back to shore before plunging her feet into the icy water of the creek. Kirie let the feeling fill her body until she was shivering from head to toe and bumps were running down her arms and legs.

There were many things about Aurora that Kirie had come to accept and even expect over the years, but this…this she would never forget and never forgive her sister for.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

_His palm started at my knee and worked it's way up, pushing aside the material of my dress as it went. Beneath me I could feel the cold hardness of the marble floor. The only sounds were my uneven breathing and his panting. _

_My fingers dug into his shoulder as his hand probed further, pushing aside my underwear, and then he was inside of me. My breath came out as a sharp gasp in his ears, and I closed my eyes. _

_When I opened them, I wasn't staring around his shoulders at the ceiling above, but at Kirie in the doorway, bright light coming in behind her compared to the dark room. Her face was a mix of emotions I dared not to look at, but instead at the floor. _

_This wasn't happening. Not to me. Never to me. _

"_You slut…I can't believe you….!"_

Aurora awoke with a start. She looked around, her breathing wild. She was sitting up in bed in her own room. Just through her windows, over the hills in the distance, the sun was starting to shine its rays into her room.

Aurora wiped the sweat from her brow and took two deep breaths. Despite being so hot she was sweating, she noticed her legs were shivering. She looked down at them to see that they were twisted around inside her sheets. If this was how she was going to be woken up from now on, Aurora wasn't so sure she wanted to sleep anymore.

The princess wrapped her arms around herself, curled up into a ball, and fell right back onto her bed.

Everyone knew by now, she was sure of it. Last night had been a total disaster and it was going to be the talk of the castle until something else happened that was more interesting to gossip about.

Her friends probably thought so little of her right now that they hated her. And her parents…well, they probably wondered what they had done to deserve a daughter like her. But that shouldn't matter…not as much as what Kirie probably thought of her right now.

Aurora sat up. She had to tell her. Had to explain. But how could she face her sister after what happened…or almost happened? Aurora was so ashamed that even last night, when Kirie had given her a chance to explain, Aurora couldn't find the words to. Instead a big lump had wedged itself into her throat. So what made it any different then last night?

Aurora deflated and fell back onto her bed, pulling the covers over her head. Kirie would probably take every measure to avoid her anyway.

A sudden boiling hate erupted inside Aurora's stomach. This was all Nate's fault.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Neither Aurora nor Kirie showed up for breakfast with their parents, brother, cousin, and aunt and uncle that morning.

Kai was the first to show his agitation and hadn't stopped pacing since he'd gotten down there.

"I knew that boy was a piece of shit."

"Kai, sit down," his wife growled.

"His ass is lucky he'd didn't stick around -"

"They're just rumors, Kai," Skye tried reasoning. Her blue eyes locked determinedly onto him. "We don't know for sure what happened."

"_Rumors_ from two maids who saw the whole thing?" the king hissed sarcastically, rounding on his sister-in-law. Max glared at Kai. Rosaline, who was sitting next to her dad, sunk lower into her chair, trying not to get involved.

"Assuming they're true, this is just as much Aurora's fault as it is Nate's," Ana said, finally grabbing a hold of Kai and forcing him to sit. "Nate's gone so there's nothing you can do about him, but if those rumors are true then Aurora also has some explaining to do."

"Then why won't you let me go up there and teach that girl a lesson, or at least find out what's going on?"

"Because this is between Aurora and Kirie. Aurora has more explaining to do to her sister then us, and we won't be interrupting," the queen explained tartly. She unfolded the napkin placed in front of her on the table and put it into her lap. "They're old enough to figure this out without having our noses stuck up in it too."

Kai huffed stubbornly but didn't argue.

"Sebastian, please hand me the butter."

Sebastian, startled at first from his name being called, carefully handed the small plate of butter to his mom.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Humming quietly to herself and having just finished cooking breakfast, Livvy was chopping vegetables in preparation for lunch. Just when she tilted her head over to her shoulder to itch her nose, the dark haired son of the king and queen pushed open the kitchen door looking a bit troubled.

"Hey?" Livvy stared as he walked to the other end of the counter she was using and sat down on the stool in front of it.

"Mind if I eat in here?" Sebastian asked.

"Ah," Livvy smiled knowingly. "Are they still talking about what happened last night?" She grabbed a plate from an over head cupboard and walked around the kitchen, grabbing the extra breakfast that was left over and piling the plate up.

Sebastian sighed and nodded. Livvy put the plate in front of him and he immediately started eating.

"You don't think it's true do you?" he asked with a mouth full of eggs.

Livvy walked back to the other end of the counter where her knife and vegetables were. She shrugged and began her work again.

"Two maids said they saw the whole thing.'

"They said they came in when Kirie started yelling," Sebastian corrected, "they didn't actually see Nate and Aurora going at it."

"True," Livvy agreed. "But true or not, it wouldn't be entirely anyone's fault for assuming. I mean, I love your sister, but she's always given us a reason to assume the worst in a situation like that , you know?"

"Yeah, I guess, but I just can't believe she would do that to Kirie."

"Maybe she didn't, but we won't know until someone gets her side of the story, have you see her this morning?"

Sebastian shook his head as he bit into a piece of toasted bread.

"Figures, we probably won't be seeing her or Kirie for a while." A piece of red hair fell into Livvy's eyes and she blew it away. She looked over at Sebastian and saw that he was about done with his breakfast.

"Hey if your done you wanna help me with something?"

Sebastian shrugged, giving his redhead friend a carefree smile. "Sure." He brought his plate over the sink and then leaned over the other side of the counter where Livvy was. She pulled out a drawer at her waist and handed the prince a knife and pushed over a plate of carrots. Sebastian accepted the knife and started chopping.

"Your mom feeling better?"

"Yeah. I think she just got a little stressed out from the all the catering in the past couple of days and just kinda deflated after it was all over."

"Well you did a good job on breakfast by yourself," Sebastian smiled.

"Thanks," Livvy grinned brightly, "I'm just glad everyone is gone. That was way too many mouths to feed." She glanced down at Sebastian's small pile of finished vegetables compared to her large one. "Your no help if you don't pick up the pace, dude," she teased.

Sebastian rolled his eyes before smirking evilly. Livvy stopped and warily stared at him before he quickly picked up a handful of chopped orange vegetables and chucked them at her face.

Livvy's green eyes widen and she paused for a split second before picking up some of her vegetables and retaliating.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Almost two hours later, Millie and Kirie came trotting slowly back to the stables were Gage was outside pouring the last bucket of water into a trough sitting against the fence that was attached to the building. At the sound of approaching hooves, Gage looked up and turned to see the princess and her horse entering into the surrounding fence, headed right for him.

"I thought that might be you when I noticed Millie gone this morning," Gage smiled cheerfully as he held his hand up to her, offering to help her down.

Kirie wordlessly accepted his offer, swung her leg over Millie's neck, and dismounted. Gage took the horse's reigns and led her over to the freshly filled trough of water under the fence. He gave Millie's neck a good pat and then looked over at Kirie again who hadn't moved. She was staring blankly off into the space just above Gage's head of dark hair.

"I heard about that happened last night."

Gage noticed Kirie flinched at this a bit but she neither answered nor moved her eyes to look at him.

"You and Rory gonna make up?" he asked casually.

"What do you think," the princess snapped, and immediately sighed, looking guilty. "Sorry, that was rude."

Gage shrugged. He started removing the saddle and blanket off of Millie's back as she drank. "Don't worry about it. Your upset, I get it. But do you really plan on avoiding Aurora for the rest of your life?"

"For as long as I can help it," Kirie mumbled moodily, crossing her arms.

"Well if you really want to know what I think, I think that everyone makes mistakes, and from what I hear Aurora's made a really big one. But it happens, and you guys are sisters and a little argument shouldn't stay stretched between you," he said. Gage suddenly stopped what he was doing to stare straight at Kirie, his eyes showing nothing but his sincerity. "You need to talk to her."

At first Kirie was visibly really mad at Gage for even suggesting it, but finally she deflated with a sigh. "Not yet. I'm not ready."

"No one is forcing you to do anything yet."

"It's just hard."

Gage was startled when he heard Kirie's voice climb higher and tears stated welling up in her eyes, but he did a good job hiding it. He calmly walked up to the princess and wrapped his arms around her in a hug which she accepted.

"I know it is."

Kirie knew she was suppose to forgive her sister, because just like Gage had said, everyone makes mistakes. But the pain and hatred for her sister at the moment was eating her from the inside out. There was no room to forgive. The only thing she had extra of was hate and finger pointing.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"_Nate? Are you lost?'_

_I walked into the dark room after the flash of neat blonde hair and handsome face. _

"_Hello?" _

_Had I imagined Nate disappearing from the hall into this room?_

_Hot breath suddenly tickled the back of my neck sending shivers down my spine. I jumped, startled. _

"_Shh, it's just me." _

_It sounded like Nate. I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed in embarrassment after being scared so easily. _

"_God, you scared me."_

_In the dark I could just make out his shape moving to stand in front of me. I could tell his face was close to mine because I could smell his breath. It smelled a little like champagne and cinnamon. _

_And then his mouth was on mine in a forceful kiss. My eyes widened and I thought about pulling away. This was wrong. Way wrong. This was Nathanial Beglow. This was Kirie's boyfriend. _

_It felt wrong, but at the same time I felt myself melt into the kiss. _

_Next thing I knew I was crushing my lips against his right back. _

"Aurora?"

Aurora jumped at the sound of her name and her head snapped up from between her knees. She briefly scanned over the picturesque view of a valley and rolling green fields in front of her, trying to remember where she was, before turning her head around to see who had recognized her.

Jayden had called her name and was standing on the dirt road several yards behind her looking amused.

Aurora steadied herself on the stone wall she was sitting on. Oh, right, Jayden lived in the village. She cursed at her self for forgetting about him. It wasn't like she didn't like Jayden, it was that she had come into the village hoping for some peace. No one around here knew about the happenings in the castle unless it involved them, but just in case she even wore a cloak with a hood. How the hell did Jayden know it was her?

The princess cleared her throat and spoke in a voice she hoped sounded confused.

"Uhh, do I know you?"

Jayden snorted. "Common Rory, your not being very sneaky of you're the only one in this village that wears a cloak and a hood," he started walking towards her. "Besides, everyone knows that royals are the only ones who do that when they don't want anyone to know it's them, so yeah, nice try."

Aurora couldn't help the smile that spread across he face. "Hmm, that obvious?" She turned back to the deep valley in front of her and pulled down her hood.

"Only if you pay attention." Jayden sat down and tapped the side of his head.

Aurora tucked her knees tighter into her chest. She stole a glance at her brown headed friend who was looking perfectly comfortable just staring at the view in front of him.

The two friends didn't talk for a while. Aurora thought he might mention something about what he most likely heard about her and she was dreading it. How was she going to react when she found out one of her best guy friends thought she was a backstabbing slut?

She waited for him to say something. Minutes passed but still he didn't ask or say anything. A part of Aurora didn't want to know, but a part of her did. It was the type of morbid curiosity she sometimes got when she knew she wasn't going to like the answer but she wanted to know anyway.

Finally after waiting for what seemed like forever, she opened her mouth to find out.

"You heard about last night, didn't you."

"Yep."

Silence.

When was he going to start calling her names? Ask questions? Lecture her? Not act so calm? How could he not act disgusted after having heard everything?

Jayden never once did any of those things. His expression nor his posture changed from it's lazy, comfortable look.

Aurora had never felt so grateful in her life. Just sitting with her and not saying anything told her that he knew how much she was hurting and didn't want to explain. She was grateful, but she was also confused. He must have some sense of false loyalty if he doing this.

"Jay, why do you still sit with a girl who everyone thinks is a betraying slut?"

"Everyone, Rory? There are only maybe fifty people who have heard you called that, and the world contains hundreds of thousands."

Tears pricked the sides of Aurora's eyes. Jayden didn't care at all what happened. It wasn't that he was curious or trying to spare her feelings, he just didn't care. He still thought the same of her like nothing had ever happened.

That was something she loved about guys (sometimes) - or well, Jayden Granger.

They don't ask why or how and they don't read in between the lines. They ignored that stuff, or just don't notice.

Right now, she could appreciate that.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Darkness was just starting to settle when the youngest princess made it back up to her room. After spending the whole day helping Gage in the stables, she was pretty exhausted, but despite her gloomy mood this morning, she'd have to say that she was feeling pretty good now. Gage pretty much didn't bother her anymore with questions or lectures about Aurora after the first five minutes she'd been back from her morning ride and offered to keep her busy the rest of the day instead which Kirie had gratefully accepted, eager to get her focus on something else.

It'd worked a lot better then she thought it would, but her luck didn't stop there. Kirie had even talked to some of her friends when she'd come in just a few minutes ago, and it turned out being a lot easier then she thought. Porsha had given her a relieved smile and warned that her parents were worried and looking for her. Livvy had caught her in the hall to remind her that she was cooking her favorite for desert tonight (caramel apple pie) and Wesley had made sure she accepted the flowers he handed to her before she reached the stairs. "_A late birthday present_ …_from both of us," _he'd explained sheepishly as he handed over a large bouquet of sunflowers and roses. Wesley worked here at the castle in the gardens with his dad, Tala, and it was what they both prepared for her every year. The flowers were always one of her more favorite gifts.

But not once did any of them mention what she'd been positive they would. Kirie had a feeling they knew how much she didn't want to talk about it and acted like everything was normal. Even if they were dying to know the whole story, they kept it to themselves.

With a small smile on her face and her flowers in her hands, Kirie opened the doors to her room only to find her mother pacing back and forth the length of her room right in front of her bed.

"There you are!" she almost shouted at her daughter, her eyes bugging. "Where have you been all day?"

She had the hand-on-the-cocked-hip pose going on.

Great.

"With Gage in the stables."

"So I've heard, but you didn't think to tell your dad or I?"

Kirie suppressed the sarcastic question of why her mom asked where she was if she already knew, that threatened to roll off her tongue. The princess shrugged instead, trying to look innocent.

Ana inhaled and exhaled deeply. She looked like she was struggling not to explode. Kirie was hoping she didn't because she didn't want to hear it.

Finally the queen looked her daughter right in the eyes and said firmly, "If you aren't washed and downstairs in the next hour for dinner, I'm going to be seriously pissed."

Kirie could see that her mom was trying not to sound rude but there was no misplacing the treat in her voice. So she just nodded and Ana left. The princess let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She wondered how long it was going to be before her luck ran out. She had barely escaped her mom yelling at her for being worried and she didn't mention anything about what happened with Aurora either.

Kirie shook her head and walked to her bathroom, trying not to question her luck too much.

Meanwhile, Ana burst into her and Kai's shared bedroom looking relieved.

"Found Kirie," she sighed, walking over to her husband who was outside on their balcony. He was leaning over the side, staring hard at something below him.

Ana walked over, confused by his expression.

"Found Aurora too."

Wow, he sounded just about as happy as he looked.

"…and she's with a guy."

Nope. Not happy.

Ana's eyebrows furrowed as she also leaned over the railing to see her oldest walking side by side with a familiar looking dark haired boy. They were walking up the dirt path to the castle's entrance.

"Kai, that's Jayden," she assured him. She expected Kai's face to relax a little, but if possible her husband looked even more pissed then before.

"Jayden? That mean's she's been in the village." Kai was seething now. He pushed away from the balcony and headed back inside. "She knows she's not allowed down there without our permission or a bodyguard. Just wait till I -"

Ana grabbed Kai's arm, stopping him in his tracks.

"Your going to stay here," she ordered. "I'm going to make sure Mariah passes the message on to Aurora that she will be at dinner in an hour, and then you and I are going to get ready so we can all enjoy a _family_ meal together."

Kai didn't look happy but stayed were he was anyway.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Kirie tucked a stray piece of long dark hair behind her ear as she rounded the corner to the dinning room. She thought maybe she was the first one down because she didn't hear anybody, but as soon as the dinning room table came into view she saw that she was hugely mistaken.

Kirie's blue-gray eyes locked on Aurora first, and her mouth pulled down into a frown. Aurora looked up from staring at her fingers only to find her sister glaring at her. It was only a second before the oldest sister averted her eyes looking a bit ashamed and with a twinge of red on her cheeks.

_Good_, Kirie huffed bitterly.

Her mom, who was on Aurora's left, smiled and waved Kirie over. Much to the youngest princess's displeasure, the only seat left was her usual which was on Aurora's right. She almost flat out refused to sit down before she saw the look her dad was giving her and decided against arguing. Kirie rounded the table, passing her aunt and uncle next to her brother on one side, and walked over to the other where she sat down, blatantly moving her chair over about a foot closer to Rosaline who was sitting on her other side. Aurora pretended not to notice that Kirie even sat on the very edge of her chair, trying to be as far away as possible from her.

Once Kirie was seated, drinks were brought out, and the rest of the wait for food was tolerated on almost complete silence. Only words passed between the adults (mostly small talk), but not a word was uttered from any of the kids. Instead their atmosphere was filled with awkwardness, and on Kirie's end, tension. But Kirie didn't care. She only had two things on her mind: how much she hated the girl on her left, and how good her pie was going to taste later.

The king pretended he didn't notice anything was going on between his daughters and minded his own business but the queen kept glancing at her girls anxiously, not really giving the current topic of conversation much attention, and instead wondered when someone was going to snap.

Once dinner was brought out -spaghetti with meatballs and salad- talking ceased and the members of the table occupied themselves with eating.

Only five minutes into the dinner, and Sebastian was done, having cleaned his plate in record time, and asked to be excused. It was pretty obvious that the only reason he shoveled his food down so quick was so he could get out of there, but Kai was having none of it. He calmly declined his son's request. Sebastian deflated and slumped in his seat.

Kirie picked and pushed around her food, making sure to save lots of room for her desert, while at the same time making sure to send plenty of hate waves at her sister. As soon as dinner was finished, and a plate of hot apple caramel pie was put in front of her, the youngest princess instantly felt loads better. She dug into her desert like it might be her last meal and cleaned her plate in minutes.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

That was the last time she was ever putting herself through that mortification again.

The second diner was over and Aurora was allowed to leave, she was up out of her chair and headed up to her room before anyone could say a word to her. Not that they would anyway; if they wanted to they would have said something at dinner. But being talked to or not, Aurora was still never eating with her family ever again.

Knowing everyone at the table probably thought she was this ungrateful, low life slut was reason enough for her to just lock herself in her room for the rest of her life and eat all those ridicules dresses she had when she was hungry. She would rather do that then have dinner with Kirie again. It was bad enough that her mom kept glancing at her and her sister, looking like she was prepared to stop a sudden bitch slapping at a moments notice, but then there was Kirie herself who she knew wanted to reach over and strangle her.

Life literally sucked.

"Rory, wait up!"

Aurora's heart almost jumped out of her chest and she whirled around to see her blond cousin hurrying down the hall towards her.

"Hey, wow, you blew out of there really fast," Rosaline laughed in a quick rush as she tried to catch her breath.

Aurora would admit that she was bit surprised that Rosaline was talking to her. Her cousin was known to be one of those really loyal kind of people who got personally offended when someone hurt one of her friends. Kirie was definitely hurt, so why was Rosaline there in front of her smiling her same smile like nothing had ever happened?

"Hey Rose," Aurora greeted almost suspiciously.

"So what's your hurry?" the blond finally managed to huff.

Aurora shrugged. "Oh, well, it's getting late, and I just thought I'd get a head start on my beauty sleep for tonight…"

"The sun just went down like an hour ago," Rosaline countered with her eyebrows raised incredulously. "And since when do you go to sleep so early?"

Aurora fought the urge to roll her eyes but inside her head she was screaming for Rosaline to take the hint. Sadly, the blonde just kept staring at her, expecting an explanation. Aurora wanted to be annoyed, but Rose was a hard person to stay mad at. Besides, her cousin was being decent to her despite everything she probably heard, Aurora should be thankful.

The princess forced out a small laugh. "First time for everything, I guess," she said dismissively. Changing the subject she said, "So why do you look so excited? You doing something tonight?"

Rosaline's face lit up, and Aurora suddenly got the itching feeling that Rose had been waiting for her to ask all along so that she could ramble about it.

"Actually Wes wanted me to watch the stars with him tonight for a while -"

Aurora almost snorted. Wesley was such a hopeless romantic. As much as she wished she had someone like him, she also liked to make fun of him for being such a wuss whenever the opportunity arose, and now was perfect.

"- he said he had to finish planting a few more trees and then I could meet him."

The princess smiled after she looked at her cousin and saw how excited she seemed to be.

"That's awesome, Rose," she replied sincerely.

Rosaline's smile grew brighter at Aurora's approval.

And just as soon as the smile appeared, it then disappeared into a thoughtful face.

"Oh! I just remembered that I still have that dress that I borrowed from you a like a month ago, and I never gave it back!"

Aurora snorted. "That was random."

Rosaline started back in the direction of her room. "Yeah, I know, but it just came to me and if I don't get it now I'll forget again," she yelled back as she ran off. "I'll be right back!"

"Ok…" Rosaline was probably the nicest person she knew, but that girl could be a totally air head sometimes.

Aurora walked the remaining couple yards down the hall to her room. Inside her bed was being stripped of it's sheets by Porsha standing on the opposite side of the bed. She looked up from her work when Aurora entered.

"Hey Rory."

"Hey Porsha." Through her seemingly clam greeting, Aurora's heart had starting pounding nervously the second she'd spotted the maid's unique pink hair. It was kind of starting to annoy Aurora that she was always nervous around her friends now; suspicious that they might blow up at her at any time, or afraid of the loneliness if they decided to shun her.

Jeez, she'd become such a spaz lately.

While Aurora was having this personal battle with herself, Porsha seemed perfectly at ease. She went back to tearing the last rich, red colored sheet from Aurora's mattress and threw it into the large wood basket at her feet with the other matching sheets of the set.

Aurora bit her lip and stared at Porsha feeling a little awkward. Or maybe the best word was guilty. She felt bad for being on her guard and assuming her friend was mad at her.

Porsha didn't _look_ mad…

"Your not mad at me?"

Oops. That was suppose to stay in her head. Why did she always have to ask questions she didn't want the answer to?

But Porsha shrugged carelessly.

"I'm the maid, remember? I'm the neutral party. Besides it's none of my business. I wasn't there to see what actually happened anyway." She paused as she bent over and grabbed something off the floor and came back up with a clean sheet in her hands. Porsha threw it over the bare mattress and waited patiently as it floated back down. "However, it is my business to know when the cease fire is…have you tried talking to Kirie yet?"

"Not exactly…"

Porsha looked up at her again, this time to give her an exasperated stare. "Don't you think you better get on that?"

"She wants to kill me," Aurora whined in defeat, throwing up her hands. "And even if she didn't, she's still going to avoid me like the plague."

Once Porsha secured the sheet, she stopped to give Aurora her full attention.

"Ok, this is coming straight from Liv and I agree: '_Try harder. Force her to talk to you. Don't be such a coward.'" _

"Why didn't Livvy tell me that herself?"

"I don't think she wants to talk to you; she's a bit on Kirie's side, even if she denies it."

Aurora drug herself over to the chair in front of her dresser and sank down into it with a sigh.

"What do I do now?"

"Apologize."

Aurora fought the irritation in her voice. "We've been through the fact that I'm avoided like the plague…and hated the same too."

"Ok, and we've been through the fact that you should try harder before giving up," Porsha countered in the same tone.

Before Aurora could say anything, Rosaline came skipping through the door, a long yellow dress draped over her arms.

"Hey, why the long face," the blond asked as soon as she spotted her cousin. She passed her sitting in her chair as she walked over to her closet and disappeared inside.

"Nothing, Rose, just thinking…"

"I know what could cheer you up!" Rosaline's muffled voice became louder and the obvious excitement became clearer as she reappeared, without the dress, from inside the closet with a big smile on her bright face.

"You can come with me to see Wes, I promise no lovely dovey stuff. We'll just hang out, and it'll do you some good to go outside for a while."

In order to spare her feelings, Aurora refrained from mentioning that she'd been outside all day, but she still didn't want to go…

"I don't know, Rose…"

"It'll be fun!" Rosaline exclaimed. She wrapped her small hand around Aurora's wrist and pulled her up. Aurora gave Porsha a desperate look of assistance as she was being forced out the door, but Porsha just laughed and mouthed '_have fun' _after her.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

_His finger tips whispered across my skin. His thumb inched toward my breast and started tracing circles over and around. Humming in pleasure I moved my mouth to the salty skin of his neck. _

_Suddenly, my thighs were moved apart by a knee and I started falling away; loosing myself in him. _

_The fingers, strong and sure and not untiringly unwanted, were back. _

_I wanted to run. I wanted to stay. I wanted both things at once. _

_His mouth found mine and I'm was pinned to the cold marble floor by his desires. My whole body strained to meet the pressure of him. This choice could've been mine. He could've swallowed me up, If I'd just let go. _

No_. _

_My hands slid up against the silky fabric covering his chest and pushed him back. But he'll have none of it, and I find that I've finally realized what's going here. All along he wanted this and was going to take it whether I agreed to it or not. Me going along with it too was just an added bonus._

_I tried again, and again, but he didn't notice, or wouldn't listen. _

"_Stop it," I begged him weakly. _

"I think I see Orion's Belt."

"Are you on crack? No way that's Orion's Belt."

"It is too. Look, see that…there and there…Rory, you can see it, right?"

Aurora's eyes were acting a little slower then her mind was tonight, because while she answered they were still trying to come back to reality and refocus on the night sky and the small stars littered over it above her.

"Uh, yeah…yeah, I see it."

"Told you."

"You both are on crack."

"Jay, I think you're the only one on crack here because I definitely don't see anything either."

Surprisingly, the first night Aurora had joined Rosaline and Wesley outside to star gaze, it'd turned out to be fun, or well, _relaxing_ would be a better word. Ever since then, they had made it a ritual to come every night for the passed couple of days. Jayden had become a part of it the first night when Rosaline had been dragging Aurora outside when they ran into Jayden leaving for the village and had forced him to come. She was afraid that spending time with Rosaline and Wes when it was only them three would make her feel like a third wheel, but it turned out Jayden wasn't needed. Rosaline had kept her promise and the most her and her boyfriend had ever done was hold hands. But Aurora enjoyed Jayden's company none the less.

This time, her star gazing hadn't started out so relaxing. Her mind had started to wonder about the fact that everyday their group of friends became more and more divided. Of course there were people that remained neutral like Gabe, Porsha, Rosaline, and Sebastian, but then there were Wes and Jayden who tended to hang around her more, and Livvy and Gage who spent most of their time with Kirie. Of course it wasn't like no one on opposite sides talked to each other - they weren't two years old - but they just seemed to hang around certain people more now-a-days. Really, the only ones who never talked to each other were her and her sister.

It made her feel guilty to think that she was the one responsible for the growing gap between her friends, which made her realize that she was the only one who could fix it. Fixing it required her to explain to Kirie what happened that night and to apologize.

She didn't understand why it was so hard. The more she thought about it, the more flashbacks of that night she started to have, each one more vivid then the pervious. It was enough to stop her thoughts in their tracks and force her back into her shame that was preventing her from explaining to Kirie.

"You ok?"

Aurora turned her head to the left to meet Jayden's concerned brown eyes staring back at her.

"Yeah, fine," she replied in what she hoped was a reassuring voice.

Jayden didn't looked convinced but let it go anyway. He turned back toward the night sky, settling his head comfortably into the lush green grass beneath him.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Despite being her haven for the passed couple of days, the kitchen also happened to be the hottest place in the castle, so Kirie wasn't really sure why she hadn't dressed in cooler clothes when she knew what it was going to be like.

She should know all this; she'd only been down there like a billion times in the passed couple days, and yet she never learned.

It had gotten to the point were Kirie very rarely showed up for family meals anymore, and instead she would eat later in the kitchen with Livvy, and sometimes Gage or Sebastian. When she did show up, she had a feeling that her mom wanted to say something, but her dad always gave her mom that 'leave it alone' look.

Today when she walked into the warm kitchen room, Livvy, her brother, and Gage were already gathered around the wooden island counter in the middle of the room, hunched over their dinner plates.

Kirie took her usual seat between Gage and Sebastian, swiping the fat piece of bread off the side of her brother's plate as she sat down.

The prince scowled as he watched the bread disappear inside his sister's mouth. While Kirie was trying not to laugh or choke on the piece of food, Livvy turned and picked the princess's already-made plate from the counter behind her and placed it in front of her friend. Kirie tried to thank her, but found that if she wanted to keep the bread from falling out of her mouth then she'd better keep it shut. Instead, she gave her red-head friend the thumbs-up and a struggled smile.

Livvy snorted. "Don't worry about it, just don't hurt yourself."

"Almost everyday, at the same time, she takes something off your plate…I'm still trying to figure out why you don't do something…" Gage said incredulously.

"I never hear her come in," Sebastian growled defensively.

With a bit of struggle, Kirie finally managed to force the wad of bread from her mouth and down her throat. "I should've been a ninja," she shrugged. As she picked up her fork, she teasingly nudged her brother's arm.

"The more time I spend with you, the more annoying I realize you are."

"Aw, I love you too bro!"

Sebastian rolled his eyes away from his sister and back to his friends, trying to ignore her. "I think you had been telling a story before you were interrupted…"

When Livvy realized he was talking to her, she lifted her head up from her plate, looking like she just remember what they'd been talking about.

"Oh right, yeah, so this morning me and my mom made our weekly delivery of food to the village," Livvy started. She stabbed a piece of meat from her plate with her fork and brought it to her mouth, carefully chewing as she thought over the details to the rest of her story. "We were at the warehouse, just removing the last of the buckets from the cart, when this total stranger walked up to me and gave me that rose over there." With her finger, Livvy pointed to the blood red rose sitting peacefully in a brown clay vase on small spare table, used for extra surface room, near the corner of the room. Even though water most likely filled the vase, the tips of the flower's edges were showing signs of crumbling away with discoloring and cracking around the petals.

"Was it a guy?" Kirie asked, piping up at the sudden gossip. Her red headed friend nodded.

"He was cute too. Just walked up, smiled, and insisted that I dropped the flower and should take it."

Kirie suddenly burst into a bellowing laugh that echoed off the kitchen walls.

"What?" Livvy demanded. She looked over at Gage, who was struggling to fight off a teasingly smile, and then Sebastian, who didn't think whatever it was Kirie was laughing at was funny at all, instead he looked a bit upset.

"He's not very original," the princess choked out when she'd finally calmed her laughing.

Livvy flushed with embarrassment. "Ok, so it was a bit cheesy, but it's not everyday that a decent looking stranger walks up to you and gives you a gift, ok?" She stabbed at another piece of meat forcefully, looking put off as well as embarrassed.

"Your right, I'm sorry," Kirie half heatedly apologized. She still looked amused. "I would have been flattered too."

"Yeah, nice story."

Livvy shot a glare at Sebastian's sarcastic tone.

"I know it was, so why are you giving me that look?"

"What look?"

"The one on your face."

"I'm just looking at you."

"No, your looking at me like I'm an idiot."

"I just though what that guy did was cheesy too."

Livvy straightened up from bending over her food and pursed her lips angrily. "I _know_. So what's your point."

Sebastian shrugged, playing her anger off casually. "I just wondered how you could be so gullible."

"I thought it was cute," she snapped. "Why is that so wrong?"

"Obviously he had a little more on his mind when he decided to flatter you."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Livvy asked incredulously.

"I'm a guy…and guys don't give flowers to pretty girls they see just for the hell of it."

The moment Kirie noticed Livvy's grip on her fork tighten, she knew she'd heard enough. She didn't want to be in the conversation when the crazy red head decided to use her utensil as a weapon to mangle her brother.

She turned her back on the current argument and fully faced Gage.

"So what have you been up to today?"

"Well, you were with me most of the day, so I think you have a pretty good idea," he smiled sarcastically.

Kirie rolled her eyes. "Ok smartass, I was just trying to start a conversation…"

"Ok, fine," Gage smirked mischievously, "You wanna talk? Tell me how it's going with Aurora. You planning on giving her the chance to apologize soon?"

Kirie scrunched up her nose in disgust.

Gage sighed as he read her nonverbal rejection. "You know she wants to apologize, and everyone just wants things to go back to normal, so why don't you stop avoiding her and give her a chance? Don't you think your making it too hard?"

"Not my problem," she shrugged.

"I get mad at my sister all the time too, but I love the girl anyway. It helps to remind yourself that siblings are the only other people in the world who understand how fucked up you've made each other."

Kirie couldn't help laughing. She leaned over and smacked him playfully in the arm. "Porsha's wonderful and you know it," she defended.

Gage's expression was one of seriousness. He didn't crack a smile or react to the teasing blow. "That's not the point I'm trying to make."

Kirie's smile instantly faded. She stared at Gage's face for a moment, and deciding he wasn't pulling her leg, she sighed heavily.

"I'm not promising anything."

"I'm not asking you too."

"Good, because I'm not."

As soon as it left her mouth, Kirie realized that it was quiet behind her; neither Livvy nor Sebastian were arguing anymore. She wasn't sure it this was good or that maybe they'd literally killed each other.

Kirie hesitantly looked over her shoulder. Both her red headed friend and brother were staring at each other, and not pleasantly.

Kirie snorted at their hostile silence. Both sets of glares shifted to her. Really, she didn't understand what the big argument was about. Why did her brother care so much who talked to Livvy, and why did Livvy care what her brother thought?

"Well, I'm ready for desert, Liv," she smiled, trying to lighten the mood, "what'd you make tonight?"

A small smile spread across Livvy's face despite her angry eyes. Her furrowed eyebrows relaxed. "Homemade ice-cream," she finally said.

"I don't know about you guys but that sounds really good," Gage added in an encouraging tone.

Kirie nodded, "What do you say?" she asked Livvy.

The red head's smile widen and she nodded, "I can do that."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

The soft, sharp clicking of her heels echoed off the long, empty stone hallway as she wandered toward her room. The trip out of the castle to watch the stars with Rosaline, Wesley, and Jayden hadn't had the relaxing effect it usually did on her mind. After saying goodnight to her friends her head had still been swimming, and was still as she headed up to bed, with thoughts of that night she hated to remember and of reasons why it was her fault her friends were becoming more separated by the day and Kirie hated her.

She knew she was being cowardly. Sure, Kirie wasn't giving her the time of day to explain, but Aurora wasn't really trying all that hard either. She was as happy to avoid Kirie as Kirie was to do the same, but obviously for different reasons.

Everything was so mixed up. The old, fearless Aurora would've smiled right in the face of the problem and settled it right then and there. But she was afraid this time. She was sacred and ashamed and lost. Now Kirie, usually so careless and laidback, seemed to be the tempered one, and also in much more control then Aurora was.

Aurora was surprised she noticed it, but to her left she suddenly realized that angry muffled voices were coming from a closed bedroom door. When she looked over, she realized it was her parents' room.

Curiously she detoured to her left. As she got closer she found that it sounded more like one person, and it was more frustrated then angry…her mom's voice, maybe?

Not really understanding why she was being so nosy, Aurora got closer until she was almost pressed up against the large, thick wooden doors.

"Catch anything interesting?"

Aurora jumped backward away from the door, her cheeks instantly flushing from the embarrassment of being caught and her heart pumping. The women, obviously from the voice, softly laughed in amusement. Before irritation could take over her mind, Aurora turned around to find that Mariah was the one laughing at her. Instantly she relaxed.

"You scared the crap out of me," breathed Aurora as a smile also spread over her face.

"The only reason you'd get scared like that was if I busted you…so, going tell me what your up to?"

Aurora noticed that her mother's smiling pink haired maid was holding a pile of spotless, white towels in her hands. She shook her head. "Nope, I was just curious," she answered truthfully.

Mariah moved to walk passed her to the door. "I'll tell you if your curiosity's worth the trouble," she winked. She reached behind the princess to knock on the door. The voice behind the door suddenly stopped and Aurora could hear her mother crossing the room.

Mariah patiently waited. She looked over at Aurora as the younger girl slid passed her to leave when she noticed that she didn't look herself.

"You ok?"

Aurora froze, slowly turning around.

For a split second, she had the urge to tell her. Tell her what no one else knew. Not her mother, not her father or brother or sister, or even Jayden, whom she usually told everything too. The words were on her tongue but again when she tried to open her mouth, nothing came. Her throat closed, her mouth dried up, and no air seemed to want to come through.

"I'm fine," she muttered softly as the bedroom door was pulled open from the inside. Talk between her mother and the maid started up.

Without waiting for Mariah so that they could finished their conversation or to say goodnight to her mom, Aurora walked away, headed back for her room.

Only within the solitude of her room, did she start to feel the barrier that had been keeping her emotions at bay begin to crack.

There was no way in hell she was going to cry over this. She was stronger than that. With purpose she walked into her bathroom, shut the door, and started a bath with the iciest water that would come out of the facet.

This was just a small obstacle she would have to overcome.

So what if Nate or herself or whoever it was ruined her life and her friends. So what if she suddenly had become this cowardly mute. It would pass. This was just a faze. It wasn't worth the tears.

She stopped the flowing water and without stripping her body of any of its clothes, Aurora plunged her face into the icy liquid.

She opened her eyes to the water and let the coldness of it freeze away her tears and clear her head. Only when she thought she couldn't hold her breath any longer did she surface again.

With panting breaths, Aurora pulled the few wet, tangled strands of white hair back off of her face and sunk down to sit at the side of the large marble tub.

Goosebumps were starting to form under the now soaked spots on her dress from the dripping water of her face and hair. They started from one spot and spread to the other parts of her body until she was shivering. But she was feeling better. More in control of her internal emotional barrier.

Aurora didn't sit there very long before draining the cold water and replacing it with warm. She stripped off her wet clothes to start her bath.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"How can you just sit around and watch our daughters destroy their friendship?"

"You were the one who told me to stay out of it from the beginning," Kai shrugged. He was lounging on top of his bed, his hands nestled behind his head with only his loose brown pajama pants on, watching as his wife fruitlessly tried untying the back of her lilac colored dress while she angrily vented her frustrations to him. He never would had actually told her this, but he thought it was kind of amusing that she was having so much trouble getting her dress off.

"I know," Ana huffed, pulling viciously at the strings. She stretched her arm farther behind her back. "But that was when I didn't think it would actually go this far. I thought they'd fix it on their own…ugh, get this fucking dress off me!"

Kai swallowed the comment that almost escaped his mouth. He sat up, moved to the edge of the bed, and waited until Ana stormed over. His fingers easily undid the knot that held the many crisscrossed strings together over his wife's bare back.

"They've come this far, let them finish it too," Kai argued, "They need to learn how to figure these kinds of things out on their own, make their own decisions."

Feeling the dress go slack, Ana muttered something that sounded to Kai like '_finally', and walked away, going closer to the open bathroom door. _

"_I just hate to watch them tear each other up. They are still kids after all, what if they don't figure it out?"_

_She let the dress fall to the floor, and that was when Kai lost track of their conversation. His eyes roamed over her completely bare back. He found the discolored skin that was the remains of three thin scars - scars that Kai had come to accept a long time ago as effects of the war. The dark pupils continued over the inward dip her waist made, and followed the firm curve of her childbearing hips. Tight material the color of her dress stretched half way over the white skin of her butt and left the rest exposed. He pulled his eyes away and finished by following her firm legs to the floor. _

_This beautiful, half naked woman that was in front of him might have been saying something else, but he wasn't listening anymore. He watched as she let her hair out of it's wavy ponytail and fall over her back. Keeping one arm covering her breasts, with the other she turned and pick up her fallen dress. _

"…_I think we need to intervene, just a little." Kai only heard the last of her sentence because by then she had disappeared inside the bathroom. _

_Kai cleared his throat while also trying to clear his thoughts. "…Well, you know where I stand, but do whatever you want." _

"_Good, I was going to anyway," came Ana's defying answer. She reappeared wearing her silky midnight blue nightgown looking more determined then before. Kai suddenly got the feeling he was going to regret saying that later. _

"_That's great, now will you please calm down and come over here." _

_There was a knock on their door before Ana could respond. She walked over and opened it to find Mariah with a pile of clean bath towels. She smiled at her friend. _

"_Thanks Mari."_

"_No problem. Everything ok in here?" The maid peered around Ana and gave a friendly wave to Kai who was again lounging on the bed. _

_Ana shrugged sheepishly. "Yep, just talking…heatedly." _

"_You're the only one talking like that," Kai's voice added. Ana turned and glared back into the room at her husband. _

"_Alright. 'Night guys, I'll see you tomorrow then." _

_Ana returned the goodbye and shut the door. With the towels in hand she started back toward the bathroom. _

_Kai watched her, confusion etching across his face. "I thought you weren't taking a bath?"_

"_I am now."_

_Kai growled impatiently. "Well hurry up. I hate waiting." _

_Suddenly realizing what he'd been waiting for all this time she was talking, Ana stopped, raised an annoyed eyebrow and turned to face her husband with a hand on her hip. _

"_You haven't been listening to anything I've said, have you?"_

"_Of course -"_

"_You know what," she hissed as she interrupted him, "you might as well stick one of those pillows in the middle of the bed now, because your not touching me."_

"_But -"_

_Ana slammed the bathroom door behind her before Kai could finish. _

_IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII_

_This story is going to be really short just so you know. I know I said I wasn't going to embarrass myself and try and guess how many more chapters there are going to be but I'm thinking there won't be anymore then three more. Yeah. _

_---rayluva4_


	5. Mending

I've decided to make this the last chapter. I've done what I've wanted with the story and now it's time to move on to bigger and better things…or just other things, whatever lol.

There will be an epilogue!

To answer XCrazyKindOvWeirdX's question: Chapter 1 was 25 pages. Chapter 2 was not quite as long with 24 pages. Chapter 3 was 20 pages and this one is the lamest one with only 13.

Special thanks to **XcrazyKindOvWeirdX **and **rebelmewpheonix** and **marishka91**!

Random question: Who's your favorite character? Can be older or younger character.

**Chapter 4: Mending**

_All I wanted was to find a fan, or Porsha with my fan, whichever came first. Dragging my unstable mind up the stairs to hunt this fan down hadn't been part of my plan. _

_Finding Nate upstairs hadn't been part of it either…or at least, I think it was Nate disappearing into one of the rooms at the end of the hallway. Now what the hell was he doing going into an empty room by himself? What was he even doing up here anyway? _

"Nate? Are you lost?"

_As I walked farther down the hall I called his name again. I continued into the dark room after the flash of neat blonde hair and handsome face. _

"Hello?"

_Did I imagine someone going into this room?_

_Hot breath suddenly tickled the back of my neck sending shivers down my spine. I jumped, startled. _

"Shh, it's just me."

_It sounded like Nate. I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed in embarrassment after being scared so easily. _

"God, you scared me."

_In the dark I could just make out his shape moving to stand in front of me. I could tell his face was close to mine because I could smell his breath. It smelled a little like champagne and cinnamon. _

_And then his mouth was on mine in a forceful kiss. My eyes widened and I thought about pulling away. This was wrong. Way wrong. This was Nathanial Beglow. This was Kirie's boyfriend. _

_It felt wrong, but at the same time I felt myself melt into the kiss. _

_Next thing I knew I was crushing my lips against his right back. _

_He was eager to accommodate me. His finger tips whispered across my skin. His thumb inched toward my breast, pushed down my strapless top, and started tracing circles over and around. Humming in pleasure I moved my mouth to the salty skin of his neck. _

_Suddenly, and I wasn't sure just how it happened, we were on the floor; his weight on top of mine. My thighs were moved apart by a knee and I started falling away; loosing myself in him. _

_The fingers, strong and sure and not untiringly unwanted, were back. _

_I wanted to run. I wanted to stay. I wanted both things at once. _

_His mouth found mine and I'm was pinned to the cold marble floor by his desires. My whole body strained to meet the pressure of him. This choice could've been mine. He could've swallowed me up, If I'd just let go. _

No_. _

_My hands slid up against the silky fabric covering his chest and pushed him back. But he'll have none of it, and I find that I've finally realized what's going here. All along he wanted this and was going to take it whether I agreed to it or not. Me going along with it too was just an added bonus._

_I tried again, and again, but he didn't notice, or wouldn't listen. _

"Stop it," _I begged him weakly. _

_His palm started at my knee and worked it's way up, pushing aside the material of my dress as it went. Beneath me I could feel the cold hardness of the marble floor. The only sounds were my uneven breathing and his panting. _

_My fingers dug into his shoulder as his hand probed further, pushing aside my underwear, and then he was inside of me. My breath came out as a sharp gasp in his ears, and I closed my eyes. _

_I pulled my head up to his shoulder, put my lips to his skin, and bit down hard. A hiss escaped from between his teeth. His fingers left me and he threw my body away from him into the floor. The back of my head hit the floor with a thud and for an instant there was a flash of white before my eyes. In those few moments it took for me to figure out what was going on again, his hands were back, this time one of them flat against the top of my chest, forcing me down and the other hitching the ends of my dress up to my waist. _

_I dug my elbows into the floor trying to push against his hand. Through my struggles and his grunting I heard him unzip, and then one of my legs was being pushed up. In a last desperate attempt I pushed all I had into his hand. His weight didn't seem to move, and then through the dark I could make out his shadow leaning over me._

_Suddenly, through the darkness and over his shoulder, light broke into the room. As quickly as it seemed all this had started, Nate pushed off of me and got to his feet, zipping his pants as he straightened up. With my heart pounding and my fingers shaking I pulled up the top of my dress and pushed the ends of it back down. _

_And then a torch was brought into the room, shedding more light over Nate and I, and also the person who was standing in the doorway. _

_I don't think I'd ever seen my sister looking so confused and upset before. It wasn't because of the bright light that shone straight into my sensitive eyes behind her that led me to look at the floor instead of at her, but the hurt that was on her face I didn't want to look at anymore. _

"What's going on?"

_I winced at her sharp tone. _

_This wasn't happening. Not to me. Never to me. _

_Kirie repeated her question, this time less harsh. It wasn't hard to see that her anger was raising again. What was worse was that I knew I could tell her what happened. Explain what he'd almost been about to do to me. Why I was up here alone with him. It wasn't what it looked like. _

"Nate? Aurora? Someone better start explaining_. Now." _

_Nothing came from my mouth, but from Nate's it did. _

"Look, I was coming back from the bathroom, and then I ran into her and she just…" _he trailed off, shaking his head accusingly. _"I don't know."

_I think I'd been too confused and scared to be mad at him. I didn't even open my mouth to defend myself. I was froze in place by the look of pure hatred Kirie was glaring at me with her blue gray eyes. _

"You slut. I can't believe you."

_Terror ripped though me. _"No wait, I didn't -"

_Two maids had gathered behind Kirie by now, amazed at what was going on. _

"You didn't what? You thought you could just fuck my boyfriend and I wouldn't find out?"

_I was frantically shaking my head. _"No it's not like that_," I pleaded for her to understand. Hot tears were blurring the vision of my sister before me. _

"I know what I saw," _she snapped, almost screaming at me now, _"You've always had everything, but you couldn't stand to see me have the one thing you didn't!…and you, you asshole, get out of my house!"

_Kirie was pointing at Nate now who looked like he didn't understand. She started barking out orders to the scared looking maids behind her and yelling at Nate at the same time, but I wasn't listening anymore. Only after I suddenly noticed that everything was quiet again and Nate and the maids had left did I look up and see Kirie looking at me with more hurt in her eyes then before, standing in the doorway. _

_She gave me the chance to tell her what happened. Right to my face she gave the second opportunity to end this, but I choked again. My stomach twisted and bile rose to my dry throat. I opened my mouth and not even the bile came out. _

_With a look of complete betrayal, Kirie walked away from me, and I let her._

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Aurora rolled over as her eyes fluttered open. As soon as she'd awoken from the dream she knew she was sweating. Only around her ankles could she feel the twisted blankets, the rest she had kicked to the floor in the night. Her heart was pounding fast. Usually she'd only dream little bits of it, but last night it had been worse. This time she'd relived the whole thing.

She's thought that everything she'd felt that night- the shame and fear- would slowly fade over the days that passed, until it was only a blurry piece of a memory. But everyday instead seemed to be getting worse, the memories stronger and more real then ever.

Aurora knew she could have stopped it, not once, but many times over the passed several days, by telling Kirie or at least someone what had really happened, but every time she even thought about it, she froze. She could feel a part of her trying to push the true from her mouth, but there was an even stronger part that kept it in.

Even though it was all over, and still some of her friends choose not to believe anything they heard, her reputation was still smashed. She'd already been labeled a slut, a betrayer, and the story had spread.

Deep down she knew she hadn't really done anything wrong, it was Nate who was. She should be able to tell people what happened, but it was harder than that. Aurora was used to people looking at her, judging her, making their own assumptions, so hell if they thought she was a slut. It was different if they really knew; they would look at her in a different way. Not as the girl who had everything, but as the helpless girl who was so useless and weak that she'd been assaulted and almost raped.

Aurora would rather have people think she was a slut then have them know the raw and shameful truth.

If it hadn't been for Kirie thinking that Aurora had betrayed her she would have let this whole thing alone. If it weren't for her friends splitting she would have gladly taken the title of whore.

Aurora was stuck between the truth and hiding her shame.

She rolled over onto her other side so that she was now facing the door to her room. By now the thin layer of sweat over her body was cooling so that she was shivering. She picked up the remaining tangled, red sheets from around her feet and pulled them up to her chin.

This wasn't how it was suppose to be. Things like this didn't happen to Aurora Hiwatari.

A single tear escaped from her dark blue eyes and slid down the side of her flushed cheek. Before she realized what was happening, it was followed by a flood of salty tears making the same wet paths to the dark stain on the pillow below.

Only moments after, Aurora's bedroom door swung open and Porsha bustled inside. The princess hastily reached up from under her sheets and wiped the wetness from her eyes and face.

"You awake yet?" The maid asked, moving straight to the room's windows and threw open the curtains.

Light washed over Aurora's covered figure. The second Porsha saw the princess's flushed face she stopped.

"Are you ok?"

Aurora bit her lip. "Yeah fine…bad dream."

Porsha didn't look convinced but let it go. She started back for the door. "Your mom sent me to get you. She's in the garden."

"Ok."

Porsha glanced suspiciously at Aurora once more before walking out the door, shutting it behind her.

Aurora sighed heavily and willed herself to get out of bed. She trudged over to her wardrobe, threw the first thing she grabbed on - a thin, magenta colored dress - threw her hair into a high ponytail, and started for the gardens.

Aurora guessed that it was probably after ten o'clock, which meant that she'd missed breakfast and lunch was in another two hours or so. Good, she was hungry, and she only just realized it as she walked passed the kitchens toward the main doors and smelt the lunch cooking.

Outside it was windy, but it was a humid wind because the air around it was also muggy. Aurora ignored the dress that was already sticking to her body and walked into the gardens. She found her mom near a large rose bush toward the center of the garden, cutting the red flowers from the bush. She was surprised to see that Jorge was keeping her mom company and holding the basket of roses she was cutting on his very muscular arm.

Kind of an odd scene, but what surprised her even more then seeing the burly guard holding a basket of roses was seeing her sister standing by her mom also.

Aurora's stomach did a couple nervous flips. She had a feeling her mom didn't just call them all together for nothing. She swallowed her nervousness and walked her way toward her mom.

As soon as Kirie noticed her sister approaching, she looking up and glared. Her mom looked over also but smiled instead.

Aurora ignored the looks Kirie was giving her.

"Hey baby," her mom called, "You're not too busy to do your mom a favor right?"

"No…" Aurora answered hesitantly.

"Good because I have an errand I want you two to run for me."

Aurora's eyebrows shot up. "Us?"

"Together?" Kirie looked disgusted at the idea.

Ana smiled pleasantly, "Of course together."

Without a word, Kirie turned on her heels and started to walk away.

Ana's pleasant face turned icy. "Don't walk away from me Kirie Marie," she ordered.

Kirie stopped, paused, and finally turned around, walking back with an attitude in her step.

"Anyway," Ana started as she clipped off another red rose from the bush and placed it in Jorge's basket which seemed tiny compared to his massive arm, "I want you two to go down into the village and get me an assortment of flowers to put on the dinning room table for tonight."

"Mom, we _own_ a garden with an assortment of flowers," Kirie whined.

"Couldn't you get a servant to do that…?" Aurora asked.

Ana glared at both her daughters. She continued to clip off the roses but not as gently this time. "Both of you obviously have issues that still need to be straighten out -" _snip_ "- and I'm sick of watching it-" _snip_ "-so now would be a perfect time for you two to take a ride to the village together and run an errand for your mother-" _snap_ "-shit." Ana threw the broken flower to the ground.

Kirie and Aurora both were staring at their mother with incredulous looks on their faces.

"Mom…you can't be serious," Kirie reasoned.

"I'm completely serious," Ana snapped, "nothing will give you all the things that family gives you. Not money. Not fame. Not work. And you need to figure that out. You're not doing to let an argument tear your relationship apart."

Ana put the last of her cut roses into the basket and then took it off Jorge's arm.

"You'll be taking the horses. Jorge will accompany you."

Neither Aurora nor Kirie argued anymore; they both knew there was no point, but that didn't mean they liked it. Before they left, Ana handed Aurora a small purse of coins.

The walk down to the stables was a quiet one. Jorge's powerful lungs bringing air in and out of this body was the only sound. Inside Aurora was killing herself with nervousness, while Kirie was killing herself trying to keep her mouth shut from blurting out hateful things at her sister. There was at least six feet between the sisters with Jorge's massive body in the middle.

Gage had already got the word to prepare the horses, so by the time Jorge and the royal sisters showed up, Scotch, the blond horse, Bella, and Millie were already saddled and ready to go.

Gage went to help Aurora onto Bella before walking over to Kirie to assist her also.

The youngest princess was too busy glaring at Aurora while her back was turned to notice Gage, who poked her with his elbow.

"Give her a chance," he whispered as he helped her onto Millie. Kirie responded by giving her friend a pissy stare and settled herself on her horse.

Once Jorge was on Scotch, Kirie led the way down to the village with Aurora behind her and Jorge brining up the rear.

The ride down to the village was no different then the walk to the stables had been, except for maybe a little more awkward. There was no talking; Jorge wasn't much for conversation and the two sisters were obviously mad at each other so no communication was exchanged.

The slow, awkward ride ended when they entered the bustling, lively market place of the village. The princesses and their body guard dismounted and tied their horses to a post next to three others and walked into the crowd.

The first to spot and recognize them was small, wrinkly old lady who walked over to them with a limp in her step but a bright, welcoming smile on her face. Shamelessly, she hobbled up to the sisters, grabbed Aurora's hand and kissed the top of it; next, she grabbed Kirie's.

"Always so nice to have you visit, your majesties," the old lady looked up at them; her voice came out as a gently wheeze.

Both girls smiled politely. Before Aurora could thank her, another middle aged lady and her teenage daughter came up and handed Aurora a homemade scarf, and then another mother with a infant in one hand, a small boy holding the other and the father behind them; the little boy handed Kirie a basket full of bread.

The sisters thanked the villagers and continued walking, passing their gifts back to Jorge as they went until the guard soon ran out of placed to hold them. Fortunately, the gifts eventually stopped but the attention didn't. The market place was in a frenzy and almost every villager made a point to welcome them as the girls made their way to the floral stand down the long busy dirt road.

Finally people stopped walking up to them and the market place became its busy, noisy self again as people went back to their business, but many continued to watch them in wonder as they become side tracked and started browsing through the many jewelry and pottery stands that were set up next to the floral cart.

In the distance there was a faint crash and moments after, to her right, sudden loud squawking startled Kirie and she took a step back into the road as a dozen or so chickens came bustling toward her and the rest of the market place behind her. Aurora, seeing the chickens, moved out of the way also into the road. Almost as soon as the birds had passed a chestnut colored horse came flying around a corner, a wagon attached to it's behind. The wagon swung around and crashed into things, sending them flying as the horse continued running wild and out of control down the market place road. All around people screamed and jumped out of the way before the horse or wagon crushed them.

The horse was coming up on them fast and Aurora watched helplessly as Kirie and others around her pushed and shoved to get out of the way, while she felt like she was glued to the earth.

Just before the wild horse made royal road kill out of her, Aurora was hit hard in the side by something that felt a lot like a boulder and then she was looking up at the clear blue sky.

Aurora coughed as the dust settled around her and sat up. On her side Jorge was also getting up. Without saying a word, the body guard grabbed her arm, pulled her up, and looked her over for blood and bruises. Feeling stratified when he saw none he started gathering up the crushed gifts scattered in the road that he'd dropped when he'd lunged for the princess.

Around her people started moving around looking for children and family members that may have been separated in the chaos, and their hands started working to gather the things they'd lost as well. In the distance, down the road, the wild horse could be heard destroying more of the village.

For the most part the animal and it's cart had stayed on the road and a lot of the stands and carts were undamaged, including the pottery, jewelry, and flower stands. Slowly people started moving back to their pervious routes and jobs.

Kirie stepped out from behind the pottery cart with a wild look in hr eyes directed at her sister.

"What the _hell_, Aurora," she hissed incredulously. "Could you not think to move yourself out of the way?"

Aurora's face turned hard and she busied herself with smacking all the dirt off her dress. "Well excuse me, the next time we almost die in the middle of a busy market place by a crazy animal, I'll try to behave more appropriately," she snapped, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Something in Kirie snapped, and all it took were those words to set her off. All the pain she'd been carrying over Nate and the hurt she felt knowing Aurora's part in it came crashing down on her in a massive swirl of feeling. She felt like she might burst, and it was Aurora's fault.

"Like you would know something about behaving appropriately?" Kirie yelled at her older sister. "You fucked my boyfriend…at my _birthday_ party!"

For a moment those harsh words hung in the air. Aurora stared at Kirie, her dark blue eyes wide and afraid. For a split second Kirie suddenly felt guilty, which only made her angrier.

"No response?" she asked, "why am I not surprised."

Aurora flinched away from Kirie and turned to the flower stand and the young owner. "Um, which flowers do you think mom would like?" she asked in a neutral tone.

The young girl, maybe younger then them, stared at the sister as did some of the passer-bys, but Kirie couldn't care less.

"Are you _ignoring_ me?" she asked in disbelief. The very idea of Aurora trying to take some kind of high road over all this made her blood boil.

"What do you want me to say?" Aurora suddenly whirled around and shouted, surprising her sister with her intensity and emotion. "You don't know how bad I feel…or anything that I'm feeling for that matter…"

"How about saying your sorry, or it that too much for you?" Kirie hissed.

"Of course I'm sorry," Aurora answered, a bit exasperated. "I've been sorry every day since it happened, but does that make you feel any better?"

Kirie hated that Aurora was right, because of course it didn't, because it didn't change anything.

"You know what, Aurora?" Kirie suddenly realized that her voice was shaking. "I thought the fact that I'm your sister would've been more important t you then getting one more notch on your bedpost, but I guess I was wrong. It's not like you don't have enough already."

Aurora froze and her mouth fell open but she didn't respond. Not even to the last untrue and harsh accusation. Aurora finally did answer but only after she took a large breath and knew that this had to be the time to tell her sister the truth.

"It wasn't like that," she muttered, "you always think the worst of me."

Kirie snorted out a laugh. "Maybe that's because you always do the worst things. Maybe it's because your so unbelievably selfish that ever since we were little, you've always gone out of the way to take everything that makes me happy. You've always made sure you had the spotlight and let everyone know you were the first born."

"That's total bullshit," Aurora retorted with irritation now. "We both know Nate was an asshole. But if your not happy about the other stuff in your life, that's your own damn problem."

"God forbid, Aurora Hiwatari take responsibility for any -"

"Oh please," Aurora moaned, rolling her eyes, "you don't _want_ to be happy, Kirie. You want to sit around and judge everyone else around you."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never mind," Kirie growled and then sighed, trying to get back on track. She had to get this out. "Look, Nate wasn't even my type…"

"Right, because suddenly a hot guy who's alive and within the same mile radius isn't your type. Whatever, Aurora."

Kirie let out a low, frustrated scream.

"He was going to rape me alright!" she burst out.

Kirie stared, not sure she's heard right. "W-what?" she stuttered.

Aurora sighed heavily and ran her fingers through her long white hair.

"I'll admit that when he did kiss me, I kissed him back at first, but I swear I told him to stop," she explained. Her gaze was set to the ground away from her sister's questioning eyes. "If you hadn't come when you did, I don't know how far it would've gone."

Even though Aurora wouldn't meet her eyes, Kirie started hard at her sister's face. "Are you lying to me to get out of this, Aurora?" she asked suspiciously.

Aurora bit her lip against the yell she was about to shout at her sister for not believing her. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath to keep her cool.

"No, I'm not. Would you really believe that bastard over your own sister?"

Kirie wasn't sure what to believe.

"If that's true then why didn't you just tell me?" she asked, her voice coming out as gentle now, and a little hurt.

Aurora hesitated. "I was ashamed, Kir. Especially when you found us and I knew what you thought of me. "I didn't want you to think that your big sister was weak…so weak that a man almost took advantage of her. I didn't want anyone to know. It took a while for me to even admit it to myself."

Kirie kept searching hard, looking for any clue of deception on her sister's face, but saw only sincerity.

"I really am sorry though," Aurora admitted softly. "About Nate and kissing him and everything. I wish I could go back and somehow undo it. I never meant to hurt you."

Slowly, Kirie felt all her anger melt away. Nate had been an ass-wipe, and she had a feeling she knew it all along. It was weird how that made her feel a little better, like maybe she wasn't as stupid as she thought.

"Nate was an asshole. I can't believe I fell for him in the first place," she shrugged, "I guess I just liked the idea of having someone finally notice me the way guys notice you." Kirie hung her head as the words tumbled out of her mouth making her feel shittier by the second. Maybe picking him form the very start made this all her fault. If she hadn't none of this mess would have happened.

Aurora approached her younger sister and wrapped her arms around her, embracing her in a hug.

"I'm your sister. You don't think it means anything to me, but it does."

Kirie hugged her sister back and tightened her hold. She could feel the forgiveness moving through them.

As she stood there, holding her older sister like that, Kirie realized that she couldn't hate Aurora, not just for the whole Nate situation but for their childhood together as well, or even for the things she did now when pretty, confident Aurora gets all the attention.

Aurora was just, well, Aurora. She was naturally gorgeous, ambitious, and completely boy-oriented. She licks her lips when she talks to guys, flirts expertly, and all the guys stare at her like they can't keep their eyes off her. Aurora couldn't help that she was born with a permanent spotlight trained on her, or the fact that suitor after suitor come flocking to her whenever she wished. Hating Aurora for being Aurora seemed unfair and honestly a little pointless since there was nothing she could do about it. It would be like being mad at the sun for shinning too much, or being mad at the ocean for it's waves.

There was still a big part of Kirie that was angry, but more at Nate then anyone else. But there was an even bigger part that felt pity for her sister and loved her no matter what she did.

Slowly she untangled her arms from around Aurora and kissed her sister's cheek as she pulled away. She looked skeptically at all the colorful flowers still waiting to be picked out of the cart behind them.

"Do you think mom still wants those flowers?"

Aurora smiled and shrugged. "I think she just wanted us to clear things up while we were down here…but maybe we should get a bouquet just in case…"

Kirie nodded and started to browse though the many colored petals.

Jorge finally got all the crushed gifts from out of the road and disposed of the things that could no longer be of use. He then silently stood by the floral cart and watched the royal sisters entertain themselves with shopping for the largest, brightest group of flowers they could put together.

After paying, Jorge, Aurora and Kirie started back toward their horses.

Halfway down the street Aurora heard her name being yelled from above all the other market places noises.

Kirie watched as Jorge froze, and did a one-eighty right on the spot, tensed for any threat. She snorted; it was only Jayden waving at them from across the street. The brown headed boy looked both ways down the market place before jogging over to them with the biggest smile plastered on his face. Aurora had a similar smile.

"Hey Jay," she greeted.

"Hey guys…what is that?"

Aurora shrugged. "Our mom wanted some flowers for the dinner table."

Jayden look confused. "Don't you guys like _own_ a garden?"

"She sent us down here for more then a couple flowers," Kirie hinted.

Jayden's light brown eyes looked from the pleasant smile on Aurora's face and the fact that Kirie looked just as happy and there was less then a foot between the sisters. A light bulb flickered on in his head.

"Well good for you guys! It was about time."

"And I think it's about time for you to leave," Aurora teased after picking up on his sarcastic tone. She grabbed Kirie's arm and started to pull her away when Jayden put his hand on her shoulder. She stopped and turned around.

"Even though everything is going back to normal now, I was wondering if you'd still like to keep up our nightly trips outside?" Jayden asked casually, "I don't know if Rose and Wes are still going it but -"

Aurora put her hand over the one still on her shoulder and he stopped talking. "I'd love to," she smiled. She turned back around with Kirie and started to walk away. "See you tonight then," she called back.

Kirie, after looking over she shoulder to see Jayden also walking away, softly gave an excited scream and squeezed Aurora's hand.

"You totally like him," she accused.

"So," Aurora shrugged, a smirk playing over her lips.

"No even denying it, are we?"

"No point too. I knew for a while that our friendship was going somewhere and I don't mind."

Kirie was a but taken back by her sister's honesty. "Wow. That was easy."

"I know what I want."

"Oh please," Kirie snorted with a roll of her eyes," You want every living, breathing male in the world. I wouldn't exactly call that being decisive."

By now they had found their horses again. Jorge loaded Scotch up with the surviving gifts and the flowers and threw himself on top of the horse. Gracefully both Kirie and Aurora mounted their horses.

Aurora clutched a hand to her heart and feigned hurt. "Ouch."

"Well it's true," Kirie laughed. She steered Millie in the direction of the castle and Aurora and Jorge followed, with Aurora coming to Kirie's side.

"It is not," Aurora argued defensively. "Bigfoot just so happens to be male and I definitely don't want a piece of him."

"I bet if I introduced you you would."

"Whatever, I would not."

"Sure, sure."

Above them the sun was at it's brightest. Below the dry earth crunched and moved under the horse's hooves. They rode in a comfortable silence toward their house.

"I never thanked you for saving me, Jorge," Aurora suddenly said. She twisted her head around and smiled at the guard over her shoulder. "I'll be sure to mention it to my dad; I'm sure he'll appreciate it."

The large body guard nodded in acknowledgment.

"Do you think we should tell mom and dad about what Nate did - or well, _almost_ did to you?" Kirie asked a little randomly.

Aurora thought for a second. "…No, I don't think so. It'll only make dad angry, and Nate's gone and not coming back so there's nothing he can do about it. Better not give him a heart attack over something he can't do anything about."

"Dad obviously knew what a sleeze-ball was," Kirie sighed, "everyone probably did , so why was I so stupid?"

"Dad doesn't like anyone, and don't forget that I fell for his charm too Kir," Aurora said, and then smirked, "but let's ask Jorge, it's his job to sniff out the threats…so Jorge, what did you think of Nate?"

Kirie snorted. There was no way Jorge was going to answer but Aurora knew how to cheer her up none the less.

"As big as Mr. Beglow talked, he still couldn't fill out those fancy ass boots of his…his pants were also too tight for any real man to wear."

Both the princess' mouths hung open in shock before they burst into a loud fit of laughter.

"I like you, Jorge," Kirie choked out in-between giggles.

By now they were back within the castle grounds and were approaching the stables. As they got closer Kirie could see Gage standing outside the sliding wooden doors with a enthusiastic smile on his face that reached his shinning hazel eyes.

"Hey," he greeted when the horses came to a stop in front of him. He went to Kirie first and helped her down, "looks like you guys had a good time."

Kirie narrowed her eyes suspiciously while letting him support most of her weight as she slide off Millie. By his tone, Kirie had a feeling he knew something about her and Aurora's trip down to the village.

Gage shrugged, meeting her eyes and understanding her question. "Word travels fast around here," he answered simply.

"Oh, we know," Aurora assured him. She hopped down from Bella herself and straightened out her dress.

"So you guys are cool now, right?"

Aurora looked over at Kirie and smiled. "Yeah," she said, "we're cool."

"And I need to have a better judge of character and not pick the asshole next time," Kirie added.

"Your judgment is fine, kid."

Kirie looked at Gage incredulously. "Your kidding, right?"

"You picked a shitty boyfriend, so what?" Gage shrugged, "but I think all your friends turned out ok, don't you?"

Kirie smiled, "Yeah, I do have some pretty great friends," she said, nudging Gage. He always seemed to know just the right things to say to make her feel better…not to mention he was cute and had the most adorable smile that always made her feel assured.

"Ok…I'm gonna leave you guys alone…" Aurora was slowly backing away with the sneakiest smirk plastered over her face; she motioned for Jorge to follow. The guard was a little hesitate to leave Kirie and Gage alone.

Suddenly, Kirie noticed that her and Gage were standing awfully close still even after he'd already helped her down from her horse. A twinge pink formed over her neck and cheeks and she stepped back, feeling like she had crossed some sort f invisible friendship boundary.

"Uh y-yeah, I'm coming with you, Rory," she said as she turned and awkwardly made her way over to her sister. "We should probably tell mom that she can stop worrying."

"Ok, see you later Gage," Aurora gave a wave and a knowing smirk over her shoulder and led the way back up to the castle. As soon as they were out of hearing range of the stables, Aurora cleared her throat, and in a very obnoxious, girly voice, started singing.

"Kirie and Gage sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love, then comes marriage -"

Kirie clamped a hand over her sister's mouth. "You can't be serious." She waited for a moment, eyeing her sister suspiciously, and then cautiously removed her hand.

" - then comes a baby in a baby carriage!"

The youngest princess let out a frustrated screech and lunged for her sister only to grab air. Aurora had already taken off up toward the castle, her light laugh bouncing off the stone walls around her.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

"I am a genius…I should seriously have a statue built after me, and then a gold plaque under it describing my greatness."

"It should describe your unnatural modesty too," Mariah snorted.

"But look at them," Ana argued, pointing to her two daughters talking and laughing away as they entered the castle below, "they're getting along great and me, myself and I pushed them in the right direction."

Mariah looked down at her friend's two daughters. They did look a lot happier then they'd been all week. Mariah turned her head in surprise when she noticed Ana walking back inside from her balcony.

"Were are you going?'

"I just won a bet with Kai and I need to go remind him to pack his tooth brush or he'll forget it."

Mariah raised her eyebrows in confusion.

"He has to stay the night with Tyson since I won," Ana explained, happily walking from the balcony, "…for a whole week."

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Epilogue is one it's way!

---rayluva4


	6. Epilogue: Memories

Last chapter…to clear a few things up, the italics is a flashback to them when they were younger, and regular typing is just present time, a couple months since last chapter have passed for the characters.

Since I never said it before I am disclaiming the members of Beyblade, but I do own a lot of the others.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

**Epilogue: Memories **

_The sky, the surrounding air, and the ground all seemed to blend together into one mass of creamy, blue and gray darkness. The white rays from the full moon were my only source of light and it bathed everything around me in hazy glow, lighting my way through the thick woods behind the castle. _

_Running through the trees under this light made it seem like our little midnight escapade had been taken from a dream. I was running barefoot, like my other friends running with me. Together we were laughing at our stolen freedom and the risk and exhilaration it was to sneak out without our parents knowing for even a little bit. _

_Just ahead I could make out the short dark hair of my younger sister bobbing up and down as she ran; Gage at her side. This made me jealous. It was only just today that I gave up my first kiss to him, so weren't we suppose to be like boyfriend and girlfriend? Maybe he was just shy, or asking Kirie about me, but whatever it was, it wasn't going to ruin my fun. I reached over to my right and lightly tugged on one of my cousin's blond pigtail braids. As she stumbled a bit in shock, I shrieked in laughter and took off even faster. Rosaline, the victim, cried out in excitement and came after me. _

_Not wanting to me beaten by a girl I image, Jayden ran by me at full speed, insulting me as he passed. I bit my lip against some of my own insults and tried to remember that Jayden was always a jerk to me. Then, suddenly, my brother Sebastian ran by me as well, catching up to Jayden fast. _

_I streaked faster through the trees and finally we broke through. The sky opened up to the bright stars above us and without the interference from the vegetation, everything lit up. We had entered an open field, but we kept going because this wasn't our destination. On the other side of the field, we hit the trees again and continued. _

_My breath was sharp now and coming out in short gasps. My small lungs worked to keep my body moving, but I was feeling too many good things to notice it much. _

"_My gosh, are we there yet or what?" I heard my redheaded friend Livvy wheeze out a complaint behind me. _

"_Almost, Liv," Gabe assured her over his steady breathing. _

_I heard heavy but excited breathing in my left ear and then Porsha, my pink haired maid was running by my side._

"_When are you going to tell me about kissing Gage!?"_

_I hesitated for dramatic effect, loving that she was hanging on my next answer. _

"_When we get to the lake," I giggled. _

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Gage was leading the group, and behind him was Kirie. He was encouraging her along as he pulled her by the hand through the dark trees, and she was laughing and running with him. I wasn't even sure if she knew were she was going but I knew she would have followed him anywhere he wanted to take her.

Everything was so vividly familiar: the full moon, the trees, the laughter, the exhilaration, the sounds of night life, the people, even the smell of the forest after the sun set seemed familiar to me.

And it was exciting and all, but I was wondering why we were running?

"Can anyone tell me why Kirie and Gage feel the need to run, and why we're doing it too?"

"Agreed," I heard Porsha huff at my side.

"It's good for you," Rosaline answered through the rhythm of her steady breathing, like it was just that simple.

I groaned loudly. I wanted to walk but I didn't want to be the last one either, so whatever, I kept running.

Gabe was laughing, enjoying himself as he watched me huff and puff my way along.

"We're almost there, Rory," he comforted, "You can make it."

Ugh. Now I felt like this lazy, spoiled princess…and as pathetic as it sounds, I was.

I sped my running up. No way. I'd show them.

"I know I can," I hissed, running passed him.

Jayden chuckled as he suddenly ran passed me. Damn him. Why did he have to be so competitive?

I was flying through the trees, faster then ever. We came upon a familiar wide field, overgrown with weeds and large sunflowers. We all struggled to run though them, but it was only because they were so tall, and seeds and dirt went flying into our faces. The field was lit up by the moon, so seeing wasn't an issue.

Only moments from the field I spotted up ahead a glimmer of still water through the trees, and then suddenly I broke through, coming face to face with that same beautiful lake I'd seen almost ten years ago.

_IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII_

_Porsha pouted the whole rest of the way, but fortunately she didn't have to wait long. Soon, almost too suddenly, the trees separated into a small clearing only big enough for the glowing lake in the middle. It was surrounded by low hanging willows and other trees, but there was a hole at the top that was left bare, almost purposely, so that the moon could shine through and reflect off the peaceful water. _

_All of the boys ran full speed at the water and jumped in without stripping of any of their clothing, yelling in excitement. None of the girls ran to the lake, they all just suddenly stopped and looked at me expectantly. By the looks on their faces, we were all thinking the same thing: they wanted to know what it was like to kiss a boy. _

_We all seemed to start giggling girlishly at the same time. I sank into the cold, wet grass beneath me and my friends and sister did the same, immediately giving me their full attention. _

"_So what was it like?" Porsha asked curiously. All the girls leaned in closer. _

_I shrugged, playing it off casually. _

"_Oh, common, tell us already, Rory," Kirie commanded irritably. _

"_Well, I just pushed my lips against his and we kissed," I explained, giving them all a large proud smile. It was well obvious now that I was the first to get her first kiss. _

_My friends gasped in awe and then started giggling again. _

"_Was there any…you know, tongue?" Livvy wanted to know. She looked curious but also a little disgusted at the very idea of doing the action. I shook my head. _

_On her side of the small circle, Rosaline looked completely appalled. _

"_You don't really use your tongue when you kiss, do you?" _

"_Sometimes," Kirie answered wisely, "but usually only the grown ups do it." _

"_Is he your boyfriend now?" _

_I looked over at Porsha confidently. "Yeah, and I'm his girlfriend, and if he really likes me then that white bird could drop our baby in my room soon and you'll be an aunt, Kir."_

_Kirie smiled blissfully. "I wonder what being an aunt feels like." She let her head roll back to look up at the night sky in wonder. "I wonder what daddy will say when he finds out I'm an aunt…?"_

"_He'll probably buy you something because when you become an aunt you get presents like on your birthday."_

_Kirie straighten her head back and looked at her sister hopefully, "Really?" _

_I nodded. My friends were nodding their agreement on the subject as well. _

_We fell into a comfortable silence, each thinking her own thoughts on the subject. I leaned back on my arms and looked up at the clear black, star speckled sky. _

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

We hadn't even been there for more then two seconds before a loud splash was heard and both Gage and Kirie emerged together from the water.

Next was Jayden who did a victory screeched before doing an cannonball into the water.

Air whooshed passed me as Gabe, Porsha, Rosaline, and Wesley ran passed me and jumped in together, laughing and screaming. 

Even though my friends were having fun in the lake, I had to stop and appreciate this place. I remembered that night we all came here together. I remembered the stars looking exactly like they did tonight, almost like I was there again, nine years old.

"Where are Livvy and Seb?" I heard someone ask.

When no one answered I spoke up.

"He said they were coming but they'd probably be late."

"What are they doing?" Gabe asked.

Kirie rolled her eyes, "What they always do together these days."

_IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII_

_Loud splashing and laughing could be heard coming from the lake. _

"_Get in guys!" one of the boys yelled over. _

_Another wave of giggles was passed around and we looked at each other mischievously. _

_Kirie was the first to get up and start running for the water, with Livvy, Rosaline, and Porsha following. All four of them stopped at the water's edge and looked down, all their pervious courage gone. _

_The boys were yelling at them to come in. _

_Livvy grabbed Kirie's hand on her left and Porsha's on her right, and in turn the little pink haired girl took a hold of Rosaline's hand who was next to her. They started from five and counted down until they all jumped in together, screaming in excitement as they hit the icy water. All four of them came up laughing and shivering, and then looked at me just now making my way to the lake's edge. _

"_Common Rory, it's fun," Rosaline promised me as I looked skeptically at the dirty water. _

_Normally I wouldn't mind getting myself or my clothes dirty for the sake of a little fun, but it was different now; _I_ was different. I realized that I had changed from a girl to a woman. I had a boyfriend and soon I would be a mother, and girls with boyfriends and a baby don't jump into lakes and get their nice dresses dirty. I had to act proper now, like mom did. _

"_Don't bother her you guys…she's obviously scared," Jayden's mocking voice reached my ears, and when I looked up to argue I saw that he was also smirking. I stopped what I was going to say. He wanted me to argue with him and be immature, but I was better then that. Instead of shouting something back, I stuck my nose in the air and sat down right were I was at, only my feet were sitting in the water. _

"_Proper ladies don't jump into lakes and get themselves dirty," I sniffed. _

_All the boy laughed at me, but that was ok; what did they understand about responsibility and being a good mother and lady? _

_My sister also laughed at me, but that was ok because she was still very young and it was ok if she didn't understand. Livvy ignored my lecture and started chasing Sebastian and Gabe around in the water, while Porsha looked a little guilty at first but immediately lost interest when Wesley started playfully splashing her. Wes also started splashing Rosaline when he noticed she was swimming around or having fun with them, but she ignored him. Instead she was staring up at me, thinking hard about something. Moments later she picked herself up out of the water and came to sit by me. I could tell she was cold because she was shivering a little, but she was also determined to live by my example now._

_I was turning out not to be so bad at this role model thing after all. _

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Wesley looked at me for a second and realized I hadn't gotten any closer to the water.

"Are you coming or what?"

I was going to answer but suddenly there was noise coming from the trees behind me.

I turned and watched Livvy and my brother as they came out of the foliage and said sarcastically, "About time…"

Livvy gave me a wink as she walked passed and I cringed, trying not to think of what it meant they were doing all this time. That was the only thing that sucked about having a really good friends date your brother or sibling, you had to block out a lot of things that were said or you might lose your mind.

When they were close enough, Livvy grabbed Sebastian's hand and jumped in, dragging him with her.

Now I was the only one left to get in, and it didn't go unnoticed. Everyone looked at me expectantly.

"Don't be a puss," Sebastian teased.

"You can't seriously not be getting in…" Livvy asked.

I sighed, "Yes, yes, I'm getting in, chill." I walked over, stood by the edge and started slipping my dark purple dress from the shoulders.

"Oh my god, you can't be serious…is that really necessary?" Kirie wanted to know.

Jayden was smirking and whistling at me.

"I have a slip underneath, Kir, and yes it is necessary. The water is dirty and I happen to like this dress." The dress fell to the ground in a bunch around my feet, reveling a little black slip underneath. With everyone staring and waiting, I looked down at the water hesitantly.

Jayden swam over to me. "Common Rory, it won't ruin anything and it won't kill you."

I felt my face scrunching up; I knew I was about to back down…just think of all the bacteria in there!

Suddenly, something wet and cold wrapped around my ankles, pulling me, and the next thing I knew I was falling forward onto Jayden who was already laughing as I screamed and fell into the lake.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Thanks to **rebelmewpheonix**, **xCrazyKindOvWeirdx**, and **marishka91 **who reviewed all the chapters and even though you guys are the only ones who read it, I still feel very grateful and happy for the positive feed back and taking the time to read this, so thanks again guys!

Next order of business: the question is still left hanging of 'who is your favorite character in this short story'. If you don't want to answer fine, its just for fun, if you do just put it in our review.

And last: I've decided on my next story if anyone is interested. It's called Calm Before the Storm and it'll be possible my last beyblade story for a really long time. Here's the summary if you interested:

Kai Hiwatari in the past two years has:

a.) retired from boosting cars,

b.) been cheated on by his ex-girlfriend,

and c.) ran away from his psycho grandfather.

But now because of his (annoyingly) kind-hearted friends, he's back helping his (cheating) ex-girlfriend get together a big boost before she gets herself killed (not that he would mind...) and all within the risk of having his (crazy) jackass of a grandfather finding out he's back.

In Kai Hiwatari's opinion his life hasn't been all that great so far.

Yeah so, it'll be awhile before the first chapter gets posted because I want to get a head start writing a few before I post, but if you want I'll message you when it's ready, just let me know.

Over and out!

---rayluva4


End file.
